Chapter 6

2023 - All I can say is, buckle up, because this chapter is heavy with doctrine, with foundational teaching, with explanation.  This one is worth reading over and over.

2021 - It has been several days since I read John 5, where Jesus lays out the proof that he is the Messiah, and that the reason the people disbelieve him is because they disbelieve Moses.  He is connecting himself to the Law.  I see from the next line that the chronological Bible also leaves a big time gap between John 5 and 6.  So apparently quite a few other things happen between these chapters, and likely much of it is covered in the other gospels, but not in John.

Note that it has been almost two weeks since we read a chapter from John in the Chronological Bible.  And Chapter 5 was unique to John, relating things that none of the other writers cover.  John rejoins the historical narrative at the feeding of the 5000.

Jesus goes up on a mountain, but the people follow.  He and his disciples see them coming. 

2021 - I noticed for the first time that vs. 4 says it was almost time for the Passover.  And here is the Lamb of God sitting up high on a mountain, and people from all over are coming to him and are hungry, and need to be fed.  I had never before noticed the symbolism of the feeding of the 5000.

Jesus asks where they are to buy bread for so many. 

2022 - This year, this vs got my attention:

6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. [Jhn 6:6 ESV].  I think we see here that a lot of time has passed since these events, and John the Apostle has had time to look back and to better understand some things about Jesus words back then.  John is explaining to us that Jesus already knew the answers.  He is telling us that Jesus was omnipotent, and knew all things that would happen in the future.  Perhaps some were saying that this question implied that Jesus was not divine, nor even a very good prophet, if he was having to ask the disciples where to get food.  And these same skeptics would likely say that it turned out everyone brought a sack lunch anyway, and that there was no miracle here.  John is trying to refute that, by telling us that Jesus already knew what would happen, and uses the question to teach a lesson on faith, and a lesson on who he really is.  In Matt, Mark, and Luke, this question is not included.  In the Synoptics, Jesus just says they can feed them right here.   

Andrew locates the 5 and 2.  Jesus tells them to have everyone sit down in groups.  Jesus blesses the food, then feeds them all.  The people are amazed, and Jesus sees they are about to take him and make him king.  So he goes back up on the mountain.  Jesus had not come to be King.  That is yet future.  He came to die this first time, to be the perfect sacrifice.  John is the only one who tells us this part, which explains why Jesus sent the 12 away so quickly, even though they had just returned from their mission.  Also note that this large crowd had completely missed the point.  They wanted to make Jesus a political leader, a King.  They might have really declared him King of Bethsaida, or some such area, which would immediately have brought a strong reaction from whomever was the current King of that region.  Jesus would certainly have been located and locked up indefinitely - if that were possible. 

Note that all accounts of this event include the number 5000.  They all agree that this is how many men there were, plus women and children.  They were from the nearby towns and villages, so probably a "normal" distribution of men, women, and children.  There had to be 10,000 t0 15,000 people there.   What does a crowd of 15,000 look like out in the countryside?  How do you address so many at once with no "sound system"?

2022 - Oh my.  Look at this verse:

14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, "This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!" [Jhn 6:14 ESV].  These people believed that Jesus was "the eschatological Prophet", Elijah if you will, who would proclaim the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God.  This is John the Apostle pointing out that John the Baptist had come and gone, and here was this large group of people, with Jesus himself present, who believed that Jesus was that prophet, not John the Baptist was that prophet.  Surely this is a profound confirmation that there was a widespread belief in Judea at this time that a prophet was coming.  Then the next verse:

15 Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. [Jhn 6:15 ESV].  But...why were they trying to make "the Prophet" King?  There was nothing about that aspect of things in Cullman.  Unless they associated the coming of the Prophet with throwing off the foreign rule of the Romans and re-establishing independence.  It is true that someone would have to rule.  But I kind of think these people were mixing their metaphors.  Still, it makes sense that the Apostle would be making the point that, to these people at least, Jesus came nearer fitting the role of the Prophet than John the Baptist had.  And note further that Jesus moves away so they won't proclaim him King, NOT so they won't proclaim him Prophet.

2024 - Today, I don't think it is the eschatological prophet these people had in mind.  It was a prophet like Moses.  Moses led the people in the desert, and did miracles, and interceded for them with God.  He led them out of Egyptian captivity, and all the way to the border of the promised land.  He put the army of Israel on the field.  And Moses had told them there would be another like him who would come later.  This is who they thought Jesus was.  John may be putting this in here to show that John the Baptist was also an expected prophet, but not the same one as Jesus.  John was indeed Elijah, crying in the wilderness, but he was not the greater prophet, the one like Moses.  Surely Moses was a greater than Elijah in the same way that Jesus was a greater than John the Baptist.

Walking on water.  In John's account, the disciples set off in a boat for Capernaum.  MSB note says that Matthew and Mark both have the boat going west to Capernaum.  As I read it, in Matthew they were going to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and in Mark they were going to Bethsaida, which I think was probably east of the desolate place...but it could be that they'd gone out of town to the east instead of west.  So they would not have been "between Bethsaida and Capernaum" but east of Bethsaida.  If this was the case, then whether they were going to Bethsaida, Capernaum, or the place they actually ended up, which is Gennesaret.  He says they rowed three or four miles and then Jesus comes walking on the water.  They were rowing because the wind was against them.  Seeing Jesus walking on the water, they are afraid, but when they see that it is Jesus - which he tells them - they get him in the boat.  Then they are miraculously at the land to which they were going.

2020-All four gospel writers talk about the feeding of the 5000 and three about walking on the water.  I think.  Certainly at least three talk about each.  As I sit here this morning, I am confused about where that boat was, where it was going, and how close it must have been to shore.  When confused, time should be taken to unravel the confusion.  They are all talking about the same event, so somehow, the accounts are all consistent.  I am bothered that MSB is not really specific enough for me to understand.  I want to come back to this story, and dig deeper into it, until I understand how this all unfolded.  How do you start for either Bethsaida or Capernaum and end up at Gennesaret?  That is what I need to unravel - and I'm not missing that some kind of miracle took place as to where they actually arrived.  But this is Sunday morning, so time is a bit limited, and I am moving on.

2021 - John says in vs. 17 that the disciples were going to Capernaum when they got into the boat.  Vs 21 says the boat miraculously arrived at the land to which they were going.  It is possible that despite their plans to go to Capernaum, they arrived at a different place once Jesus joined them.  Maybe they arrived at the place he was going.  John really never says where the boat landed.

The people, next day, figure out that Jesus has gone.  But boats show up where they are.  The "crowd" gets in these boats and sets off for Capernaum looking for Jesus.  (More clues about the boat trip here...not getting bogged down in it again, but note that they thought Jesus was at Capernaum, but they found him "on the other side of the sea".  It does not say in Capernaum.  And Tiberias, where the boats came from, was way around CCW, south of Gennesaret, which is further around CCW than Capernaum.)

2023 - Found this map:

So if you were going to Gennesaret, but you were from Capernaum, as many of the 12 were, you might plan a stop for lunch - or a bed for the night - in Capernaum and then go on in the morning.  When Jesus came walking on the water, and miraculously took the boat to its intended destination, it landed at Gennesaret.  How did I never see that before?  Makes perfect sense...as it ALWAYS DOES!  So the only remaining problem is Mark saying they were heading to the other side - to Bethsaida.  There is no longer a Bethsaida on modern maps.  But there is some kind of park about where Bethsaida is shown on the map above.  Bethsaida is not on the shoreline though like Capernaum and Gennesaret.  Even so, the Jordan River flows into the Sea of Galilee right at this point also, so Mark's use of "the other side" might mean across the Jordan.  Today, the DMZ line between Israel and Syria runs through here, east of the Jordan.  Maybe in Jesus' time, the Jordan was the border between Galilee and Syria.  So "other side" could mean from Galilee to Syria.  And though it is a bit of a stretch, maybe the apostles went to Bethsaida to pick up a few things - gifts and such - to take home to their families in Capernaum, before going on to Gennesaret.  Remember that the 12 had just come home from their "mission trip".  They had likely not been home to see their families in quite some time.  It would make sense that they did not want to come home empty handed.  Google maps does show that the area is quite hilly west of the Jordan, but there is a very large flat deltaic plain to the east of it.  AND, why had I not thought about this....where did the apostles get their boat?  They had just come back from their mission trip.  Jesus tried to find a desolate place where they could get some rest.  But the crowds found them.  The 12 would have been tired, exhausted from their trip so Jesus told them to go over to Bethsaida and hire a boat to get them back to Capernaum for the night, get some rest, and then they'd go on to Gennesaret the next day, or maybe a few days later.  So they went down and crossed over the Jordan, going into Bethsaida to hire a boat.  Many were fishermen, so they probably had contacts here, and were known to be able to handle a boat on the Sea of Galilee.  Once they hired the boat, they sailed down the Jordan to Galilee and turned east for Capernaum.  The storm came up, Jesus walks on water, and miraculously moves them straight to Gennesarat.  Only John picks up directly after they landed in Gennesarat.  In Jn 6:22, John says "On the next day...".  So the day after they landed in Gennesarat.  We see that the people from the desolate place set out to search for Jesus, and they themselves sail not to Gennesarat but to Capernaum.  There, they find Jesus, and he speaks to them and teaches them.  At the end of the teaching, in Jn 6:59, John tells us this teaching took place in the synagogue at Capernaum.  So the story ties right up nicely with no loose ends.  They did go to Gennesarat, but they did not stay very long.  They went right on to Capernaum, so the apostles could see their families, and the crowds once again, in boats from the desolate place, showed up and wanted him to give them some more bread.  They get irritated that Jesus says HE is the bread, sent down from heaven, trying to lead them to spiritual sustenance instead of the purely physical - and the miracle of free food - that they were seeking.  So finally, on my eighth reading of this passage, a coherent timeline emerges.  Eight years it took for me to make sense of what now seems so very obvious.  I so love my Bible!!!

2023 - To be clear, Matthew 14 does not have Jesus telling the 12 where they were to go.  It does say they arrived at Gennesaret.  In Mark, it is worded this way:  45 Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. [Mar 6:45 ESV], but it clearly says they landed at Gennesaret.  In John, we do not have Jesus' instructions, but it says this:  16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. [Jhn 6:16-17 ESV].  Luke talks about the feeding of the 5000, but not about the boat trip or the walking on water.

The Crowd themselves...couldn't have been all of them surely?  MSB says people were still at the site where they'd been fed, and OTHER people, on boats from Tiberias, came by looking for him.

MSB also says vss 22-58 are a discourse of Jesus, and contain the first of seven "I AMs" we will find in John.  John shows Jesus is Messiah, but further, wants to show that he was more than just a miracle worker, He was the Son of God.

Jesus sees that many are just looking for another free meal.  The meal was a miracle, but they are interested only in getting fed, and have completely ignored and discounted the healing miracles that Jesus is also doing.  They are focused on the physical needs of the day, on food they don't have to pay for.  Food to eat.  They don't recognize at all the eternal aspect of what Jesus is offering them.  Jesus tells them not to work for physical food that perishes, but for the eternal food that never perishes.  He tells them to feed their spirits not their bellies.  They ask him how to do this.  This is the whole answer:  29 Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." [Jhn 6:29 ESV].  There is nothing here of saying a prayer, of asking forgiveness, of confessing the name (2023 - or of being baptized).  Belief in Christ is the core of salvation, the ONLY essential of salvation. 

2023 - This verse:

27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." [Jhn 6:27 ESV].  What is this seal?  What does it mean?  Perhaps a clue can be found in this verse:  3 saying, "Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads." [Rev 7:3 ESV].  Perhaps this sealing protects from harm from any source, AND the one sealed is a very specially purposed conduit through which God draws his chosen to himself.  In John, it is Jesus, sent directly from God, born into the world, to lead many chosen to salvation.  Then in Revelation, the 144,000 are there to bring the children of Abraham, finally and for all eternity, into the promised kingdom of God.  I had never picked up on Jesus saying he was sealed before!  This goes in my Rev 7 chapter notes too!  Look also at vs 37:  37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. [Jhn 6:37 ESV].  Dare we say that the Father will give souls to the 144,000?  It surely seems to tie.

So they ask him to show them a sign whereby they can believe him...like maybe make them some manna, as in give them free food every day from now on, like when they were in the desert.  I think they misquote and attribute the manna to Moses.  Jesus again tries to steer them away from the physical to the spiritual.  He tells them that HE is the bread that God is sending them, the HE is the manna they are looking for, He is the daily sustenance that they need, but that it is NOT physical.  In 35-40 he tries again to explain it. 

2023 - This verse:

33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." [Jhn 6:33 ESV].  The note above is wrong.  In 33, Jesus attributes the manna to Moses, and points out that manna was physical only, and did not save.  Moses - the Law - cannot save.  The real bread, the REAL MANNA comes straight from God, from heaven, and gives eternal spiritual life.  That manna is not "edible", that manna is the person, the life, the work of Jesus Christ.

2021- This verse:

35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. [Jhn 6:35 ESV]

This is not about anything physical.  It is analogy, symbolism.  This is about the restlessness, the discontent, the lack of peace that we all sometimes experience.  Jesus says that he is the "food" that nourishes that king of hunger.  Spiritual hunger and thirst.  We must feed our spirits just as we must feed our bodies.  The food the spirit needs is belief in Jesus.  Believing in Jesus brings peace to our spirits.  He had also said this is vs 33.

2021 - These verses:

39 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. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." [Jhn 6:39-40 ESV]  The purpose of Jesus in the world is explained here. 

2023 - We can also see this as a reference to the rapture.  If you look on the Son and believe in him, you have eternal life - already, with no further requirement.  Jesus says this pre-crucifixion.  And if you believe, you get raised up on the last day.  Interesting.  The only thing "last" about the rapture is that it is the end of the church age.  The entire church is taken out along with the dead in Christ that believed in him.  I think the rapture is about the church, not about all the saved of all time.

2023 - Later...Found an internet discussion of "last day" and saying that the "last day" means the last day of the church age disagrees with it.  Here are all the relevant verses.  They are ALL in John, meaning he is the only one who uses the term, and it meant whatever John was thinking it meant when he wrote it down.  None of the other gospel writers quote Jesus using this specific term.  Only John.  See more on 12:48, the last usage, below the verses...

39 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. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." ...

44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. ...

54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. [Jhn 6:39-40, 44, 54 ESV]

24 Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." [Jhn 11:24 ESV]

48 The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. [Jhn 12:48 ESV]

If 48 is right, the last day is a judgment day, and in this verse it is a day when the lost will be judged.  There are no lost people at the bema.  So when else will there be a judgment of both the saved and the lost?  The GWT qualifies if and only if the rapture is only about the church.  And then you have to say that the ones Jesus is talking to in John - and promising to raise on the last day - don't count as "church people" yet.  So they don't get resurrected until the GWT:  Here's what we know about the GWT:

12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. [Rev 20:12-15 ESV].  So...who will be at the GWT?  If you were dead in the sea, you were raptured, so the raptured won't be judged at the GWT.  If that is right, this can only be the lost that show up for the GWT...and any saved during the Millennial...maybe.  I mean, why do they need the book of life if no one there is even in it???

2024 - It makes sense if only those from Pentecost to the rapture are raptured.  Those to whom Jesus is speaking here are still under the Old Covenant, but because they "saw" him, as in vs 40, which says everyone who BEHOLDS  the Son and believes in him, HE will raise up at the last day. 

2025 - There is another way to understand these verses.  We have the Old Covenant, which required faith for salvation but also included the sacrificial system.  Then we have the New Covenant which requires faith - without the sacrificial system and which is open to Jew and Gentile alike.  But what if Jesus is here designating a third covenant, an interim covenant, for those alive on the earth while he was here and who personally physically SAW HIM.  Like those of the OC, these will be raised up at the GWT to be judged with the OT saints.  The church will have long since been raptured, judged at the bema, and so not subject to the second death in any way.  If we look at it this way, it isn't that hard to understand these verses.

This is surely a proof text for perseverance of the saints.  Those who are to be saved are given to Jesus, and he keeps us/protects us/holds us secure against all things, Satan especially, so that on the "last day", we can be resurrected to eternal life with him.  This is the purpose of Christ.  He has all power to hold us.  His place is primary right now, he is making the rules and running the universe.  It is all in his hands now so that he can preserve what he's been given, and resurrect us to eternal life.

Last day?  The saved come out of their graves at the rapture.  Then the saved who are alive go up.  It seems to me that we should understand this as the "last day" of the Age of the Gentiles, or the last day of the "Church Age".  Jews will be saved after this, believing in Christ as the means of that salvation - just as Gentiles have.  But this is the last day, not last days.  It must be the rapture, and the rapture is an end.

Interesting that MSB has no comment at all on the meaning of "last day".  Seems like it's pretty important.

He ends with vs 40:  40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." [Jhn 6:40 ESV]  So a bit has been added to vs. 29.  Well....maybe not.  It may be again that Jesus is talking only to those standing right in front of  him.  After all, in vs 36 Jesus says "You're looking right at me, you've seen me and the miracles I've done, and YET you do not believe."  So here in 40, he is saying to those assembled that they must SEE him for who he really is, and recognizing him, they must believe.  If they will do this, the father will save them and Jesus will raise them. 

In 41, the Jews resort to the Nazareth argument.  They "know" Joseph and Mary, and this guy is their son.  He could not be from God if he was born to Mary and Joseph.  They go back to the literal, to what they physically know, not to what is spiritually discerned.  How could he have come down from heaven if he was born in the normal way to Joseph and Mary?   Jesus replies in vs 44:  44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. [Jhn 6:44 ESV]  How is this the answer to "Isn't this the son of Joseph and Mary?" 

2021 - It is the answer because it moves back again to the spiritual things that he is talking about.  They ask a physical question, in the time frame of mankind, Jesus answers in the time frame of God - this is about something bigger than Mary and Joseph.  This is about God's plan for the universe, and Jesus is the cornerstone of that plan.  He is here to gather those whom God wants to save, and to preserve them against all things until that last day, when the proof of Jesus - that he can keep all he has been given against all things, that he is more powerful than Satan, that he is the Chosen of God - over and above Satan, that he is capable of doing what Satan could never do - when all that is accomplished, it will be the last day.

Jesus says this:  45 It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me-- [Jhn 6:45 ESV], and is referring back to this verse:  13 All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the peace of your children. [Isa 54:13 ESV].  Taught by the LORD.  By God himself.  Jesus is teaching them, and showing them that believing in him is the way to eternal life.  He is indirectly saying that he is GOD, teaching them as prophesied.  He makes a distinction in vs 46:  46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. [Jhn 6:45-46 ESV].  Jesus says he is NOT God the father.  But has seen the Father, and he has come down from the Father.  He came from heaven, where God is, sent down like manna in the wilderness, that all who "eat and drink" of him will live forever.

Further, this is about election by God.  Those taught by God will be drawn to Him through the Son.  God must first call, and the elect will hear. 

vs 47...47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. [Jhn 6:47 ESV].  Two truly's here, that belief leads to eternal life.  Only belief, only in the Son.  That is all of it.  Jesus goes on to contrast physical manna with spiritual bread - he is the spiritual bread.  His flesh is that bread, and he is going to give his flesh for the life of the world - eternal life, as manna was given to sustain physical life. 

2025 - In the wilderness, God, as spirit, sent physical food - the manna - so they did not starve physically, yet that physical food only temporarily sustained life.  All those who ate manna eventually died.  But in John 6, Jesus, as physical man, offers spiritual food - his body and blood - to sustain our spirits, which will never die, but translate directly to the presence of God upon our physical death.  Such a contrast between the old and the new.

2023 - Even though John does not have baptism in view here, we ought to remember that John wrote this gospel probably 50 years after Jesus died.  He wrote these things that Jesus said, and Jesus never says baptism.  John, for his part as writer of this gospel, does not feel any compulsion at all to insert this "now understood requirement" for salvation.  Wouldn't he have done so, if the gospel had "changed" after the resurrection, so that baptism was then required, wouldn't John just pretty much HAVE TO say something about it, somewhere???  Yet it isn't here.

2022 - This verse:

51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." [Jhn 6:51 ESV].  This verse indicates that Jesus was well aware of what lay in store for him at this time.  He knew that he was to be the perfect atoning sacrifice.  Those who say Jesus was just a man who bent circumstances to make himself greater, or those who say Jesus had no idea that he would be "elevated" as an atoning sacrifice by his followers, even though he was completely unaware that this would happen, must say that this verse was added/inserted later.  That John, by this time, as the doctrines of the early church were being formed, purposely added this in there.  Because if Jesus did really say this, then it is certain that the gospel is from God himself, and not an after the fact construct of his followers who wanted to stay in power and be supported by the people. 

So now the Jews think he is talking about cannibalism.  How in the world do you go that far off the tracks?  Jesus explains again.  He is bread, his blood is drink.  We must eat his flesh and drink his blood to live.  We must make Jesus part of us.  He must abide in us and we in him.  Jesus is very obviously speaking spiritually, relating physical things as symbolic of what must happen spiritually.  Jesus will be crucified.  His body and blood will be given up.  He will die.  We must participate in this death - we must eat bread and drink blood - that his finished work may be a part of us, incorporated in us, so that we also gain eternal life.

(2023 - I have written elsewhere about this whole "drinking his blood" idea, because this was never done in the OT sacrifices.  The blood was drained and sprinkled on the altar, but NEVER EVER was it to be consumed.  We eat his body, as the sacrifices were eaten.  We drink his blood to incorporate his perfect life into our life.  I saw a preach on YouTube last night that said something like "When God looks at us, he sees the perfect life of Christ.  When God look at Christ, he sees the sins that we all committed and for which Christ dies".  God never sees the saved as sinners.  But this is because "the life of the flesh is in the blood", and we consume the blood, the very life of Christ, and it becomes "us".

John says this speech was delivered at the synagogue in Capernaum.  So either that is where the boats ended up, or he came back from where they landed to Capernaum, and we are told nothing about that.  Which seems unlikely. (2023 - Why unlikely?  It makes perfect sense if you see it this way!!!).

2020-I am out of Sunday morning time. Will just read through the last 12 verses.  I think there is a lot in those last 12 verses.  I hope I can spend more time on this chapter next year.  I have a lot of trouble with John.  Maybe because it was written so much later, and John includes the increased understanding of Jesus purpose that unfolded with time, that the other writers do not have.  So he seems to be talking about different things entirely at times.

2021 - I missed the meaning of the note at top.  I have burned myself out again before getting to the last verses.  But I did see a lot more in the earlier verses.  Maybe this is necessary before I can begin to understand these last 12.

2021 - One more thing, from MSB.  There are four "I am" statements in this chapter (vss 35, 41, 48, and 51).  All four are essentially "I am the bread of life", repeated four times.  And then in vs 51b, Jesus explains what he means:  51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." [Jhn 6:51 ESV].  The crucifixion is the food of eternal life.  The nourishment that sustains forever is the flesh.  It is his sacrificial death and resurrection that makes the bread efficacious.  Anyone could have died on a cross.  But only Jesus, come down from the presence of God, and living a perfect sinless life - by free will - in order to preserve those given to him by God - could make the cross efficacious. 

2021 - These verses:

53 So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. [Jhn 6:53-56 ESV]

Dare I call these the "cannibal verses"?

Jesus is still speaking spiritually.  He is speaking of complete, total, incorporating belief in him as Son of God.  To believe is the eat his flesh and drink his blood, which are going to be sacrificed.  The lambs, bulls, goats, etc are killed and then eaten in the Mosaic Law.  There is that one kind of sacrifice - firstfruits? - that people took to Jerusalem, and then ate it all right there in the temple.  Is this what this is about?

This verse is where I am:  60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" [Jhn 6:60 ESV].  There is so much here, so much I think I get but cannot put into words.  Things perhaps only understood on a spiritual level.  This chapter of John is indeed a difficult one, because it is so dense with truth, with doctrine.

2023 - Just look at the end of vs 56!  "Whoever feeds...and drinks...abides in me, and I in him."  At the Lord's supper, THIS is what we are showing symbolically.  We incorporate Jesus body and blood into ourselves when we are saved.  God looks at us but sees Him, because he is part of us, he abides in us, and we abide in him.  Clearer and clearer.

2022 - As I read through the gospels this time, it seems clear that very much of what Jesus says is about the spiritual kingdom that he will rule from heaven.  This I would contrast with the physical promises that God made to Abraham, and that will be fulfilled in the Millennial.  We might say that Jesus' one physical connection to the world is at his physical death on the cross.  And the resurrection is about how the physical never ever really had any hold on him.  He was always about a spiritual kingdom, inhabited by those with new bodies, made both of flesh and spirit.  Angels are spirit only, not flesh.  Only men - and Jesus - combine the two.  Wouldn't it therefore make sense that the OT prophecies would find their culmination in BOTH a physical sense and a spiritual sense?  And we see now that the spiritual fulfillment comes first, and later the physical will also be fulfilled?

Just reading it out from here....

He tells them the called could come.  Today, it seems the hard part was this whole eating flesh and drinking blood concept.  Physical as the "shadow" of spiritual.  Bread for the body, flesh for soul.

Then vs 63 seems to say this almost directly: 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. [Jhn 6:63 ESV]. 

2022 - Then this:

63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. [Jhn 6:63 ESV].  More evidence that this appearance of Jesus is all about spiritual fulfilment.  The flesh cannot be saved.  The flesh is corrupt from Adam's day.  It absolutely must die.  BUT, the spirit can still be saved, and the flesh must be changed.  Men are made of both.  To save man, both parts must be perfected.  (I also note that there is nothing here about soul.  There is flesh and spirit.  Two parts.  Not a third.) 

"the Spirit" is ho pneuma.  The definite article is used.  This is the Holy Spirit.  In the church age, all who are saved are given the Spirit as earnest.  This only occurs in the church age.  So once again we see that Christ's kingdom - at least THIS kingdom - is a spiritual Kingdom.  He will return, in future, and assume Kingship over a physical kingdom.  But this is not that kingdom.  And there is no "Kingdom of the Soul". 

2022 - This verse:

64 But there are some of you who do not believe." (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) [Jhn 6:64 ESV].  Another parentheses from John the Apostle, who from a distance better understood Jesus' meaning.  This parenthesis is the ultimate proof text for predestination.  Jesus knew who would be saved.  If Jesus knew God knew.  If they knew the Spirit knew.  This  is what Jesus is talking about.  BUT, I think a good case can be made that those who turned back at this point did not do so because of their dissatisfaction with predestination, but because they were not interested in cannibalism.  These people took literally that they had to eat body and drink blood.  How many times had Jesus just said exactly that?  vs 35, 41, 48, 50, 51 and then even more "cannibalistic", vss 53-58.  This passage MUST be understood as being about spiritual things.  But many, if not most of those standing around heard it as physical.  This in the same way that only the "called of God" understood the parables.  It was not given to most of these to be saved, and so they perceived these remarks as physical.  And they just couldn't bring themselves to eat human flesh and drink human blood.  THIS is the hard saying.  To hammer this idea  home, note that it is in vs 60, immediately after these verses, that "many of his disciples said "This is a hard saying".  They didn't mean it was hard to "believe", nor hard that God wouldn't choose "everyone" for salvation, or even that it just didn't seem fair for God to choose only some.  These questions, these difficulties, didn't arise until much later when we called them Armenianism and Calvinism.  What these people were shaking their heads and going home about was cannibalism.  And then Jesus all but tells them in vs 63 that he is NOT speaking literally of eating flesh.  "The flesh is NO HELP AT ALL".  So he cannot mean to literally eat flesh.  They had missed the entire point!

Finally!  I have never understood this before!

BUT, Jesus closes with this verse:

65 And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father." [Jhn 6:65 ESV]

So both parts are "hard".  It is not our will but the Father's, that leads to salvation.  Very hard to just be helpless to save our own souls.  To only participate, never to initiate!  That is the phrase!  We must participate in our salvation, but we can never initiate it!  But...I think that view is an age old heresy.  Perhaps catholic.  I heard about it on those tapes.  Don't buy this phraseology just yet!!!

Because of these things, many of his disciples turned back, and no longer followed him. 

Jesus addresses the twelve, asks if they too plan to turn back now.  Peter answers for them.  They know Jesus is the Holy One of God.  They have no doubt He is the Messiah.

Jesus points out that though He chose the 12, one is a devil.  Does this refer to only the Father being able to give to Jesus?  The Father makes the plan, provokes the details, and the Son obeys as is His function in the whole trinitarian scheme of things?  Is Judas the proof that it is God who chooses - the Spirit that leads - and not the Son?  The Son redeems the chosen of the Father who are drawn by the Spirit.  The three functions of the Godhead. 

Maybe I have this right...

This is limited atonement I think, in a nutshell.  Proof text for it.

2022 - One last verse...the last verse.  There are no wasted verses in John.  They all matter:

71 He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him. [Jhn 6:71 ESV].  Yet another explanation by John from a distance of something that was not understood at the time.  Another place where John is saying that Jesus had foreknowledge of his purpose and mission.  It was NOT all made up after the fact, and "matched" to OT prophecy.  Jesus himself knew.  But if you don't believe the Bible, you have assert that John - or someone even later - went back and inserted this into his gospel.  But...they'd have to insert it in every manuscript AND they'd have destroy every manuscript that did not include it.  You have to get down to one, and then re-expand the number of copies from there.