3 The Bread of Life
3
The Bread of Life
Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life.
John 6:27
Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Isaiah 55:2
For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
John 6:33
I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
John 6:35
Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.
John 6:47–48
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.
John 6:51
The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.
John 6:63
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
Only two of our Lord’s miracles are recorded in all four gospels: His own resurrection and His feeding of the five thousand (Matt. 14; Mark 6; Luke 9; John 6). In their accounts of the feeding of the five thousand, all four writers tell us what Jesus did, but only Mark tells us why He did it—because of His compassion for the crowd (Mark 6:34).
In John’s record, Jesus reveals His compassion in three ways: He feeds the hungry crowd (John 6:1–15), He delivers His disciples from danger (vv. 16–24), and He offers the bread of life to a world of hungry sinners (vv. 25–71). Jesus did this miracle not only to meet human needs, but also that He might deliver a profound sermon about “the bread of life,” a sermon our lost world needs to hear today. What the world needs is Jesus, for He alone is the bread of life.