6:60-71 Division among the Disciples

6:60-71 Division among the Disciples

5–6

Jesus’ Self-Revelation as Son of God and Bread of Life, Resistance from “the Jews”

Starting with ch. 5 there is a clear shift in the Gospel’s story. The report of Jesus’ self-revelation in chs. 2–4 continues with an ever-increasing and deepening wealth of topics and motifs. But there is now a new element in the construction of the Gospel: the portrayal of the radical resistance that Jesus’ public conduct evoked in the leaders of the Jewish people, who are often simply called “the Jews.” In that confrontation the Jewish people, called “the multitude,” is repeatedly in conflict with itself: one moment it is deeply impressed by Jesus’ authority in words and deeds, as is indicated by the repeated statement “and many believed in him”; then it is profoundly uncertain about Jesus’ identity (“Who is this?”) and afraid of “the Jews,” who are increasingly opposed to Jesus. This picture continues to the end of ch. 10, where the disputes between Jesus and “the Jews” that mark chs. 5–10 come to a decisive end, after which the last phase of Jesus’ associations with people begins.

Chapters 5 and 6 occupy an important place of their own in this structure: they contain the central issue of the conflict, which will manifest itself from now on in all of its intensity, between Jesus and “the Jews,” and bring out its fundamental cause. To this end both chapters are constructed in the same pattern, each starting with a miracle of Jesus, then continuing with the ensuing reaction of “the Jews” (ch. 5) or “the multitude” (ch. 6; see, however, 6:41, 52), and culminating in a lengthy and largely monologic discourse of Jesus. Pivotal in both is the absoluteness of Jesus’ self-revelation and Jewish resistance to that revelation. In ch. 5 we see—over against the accusations of “the Jews”—Jesus’ self-identification as the Son of God, in an unfolding of the authority given him by God, in such a manner that hardly has its equal anywhere else in the Gospel (see the comments on 5:19-29 below). Then in ch. 6, after the miracle of the loaves and Jesus’ walking on the Sea of Tiberias, follows the long discourse in the synagogue of Capernaum, in which Jesus, in a most exclusive and highly offensive (to the flesh) manner, describes himself as the bread that has come down from heaven, which he gives for the life of the world. Both of these chapters’ central perspectives, both the christological perspective of ch. 5 and ch. 6’s related perspective of the salvific significance of his descent from heaven, will return, more fragmentarily and in more of a swirl of dialogues and intermezzos, in chs. 7–10, but always against the full background of chs. 5 and 6.

Of no less importance for insight into the construction of the Gospel is the locale in these chapters, Jerusalem in ch. 5 and Galilee in ch. 6. The dominant interest of these chapters is thus “allotted” equally to the two places. Jerusalem, to be sure, will increasingly prove to be the place where the denouement of the conflict will occur and where the great spiritual struggle of Jesus with “the Jews” takes place with ever increasing intensity. After ch. 6 (and the beginning of ch. 7) we do not find Jesus back in Galilee. But that does not mean that the Galilean “contribution” to the content of the Gospel is less essential. For the Evangelist “knows” that not Jerusalem and Judea but Galilee is Jesus’ home and the base of his activity (see comments on 4:1ff., 54). Jesus’ stays in Jerusalem are restricted to the great feasts to which he as a pilgrim from Galilee “went up.” But also in terms of content Galilee is given full measure; this is the case in chs. 2–4 (see comments on 4:54) but especially in ch. 6, where the Evangelist summarizes Jesus’ self-revelation in Galilee and “the divergence of minds” taking place also there and brings them together at a point in his Gospel that is most pivotal for the construction of the whole.

All this, however, does not alter the fact that the big decision is made, not in Galilee, but in the center of Jewish life—in Jerusalem and specifically in the temple, the heart of Jewish religion. There is good reason that already in the first cycle (chs. 2–4) the first confrontation with “the Jews” takes place in the temple, the temple itself being an issue as the place where God dwells and as the house of Jesus’ father. One could even say that the saying of Jesus, “destroy this temple,” finds its sinister fulfillment in the rising resistance of the Jews to Jesus’ self-revelation as the Son of God.

In this light, finally, one may regard also the long-standing literary-critical contention over the original order of chs. 5 and 6. Many commentators believe that, for whatever reason, these chapters have traded places. The main argument for this is that 6:1 links up much better with the conclusion of ch. 4 than with that of ch. 5; 6:1 mentions Jesus going “to the other side of the sea,” which would presuppose a stay on the western side of the Sea of Galilee, as at the end of ch. 4. By contrast there is no local connection between 6:1 and the end of ch. 5, where, to the end, Jesus is in dialogue with “the Jews” in Jerusalem. Moreover, with the order reversed, the nonspecified “feast of the Jews” of 5:1 turns out to be the approaching Passover mentioned in 6:4. If one further assumes that the geographic reference in 7:1 (“Jesus went about in Galilee”) concerns not a continued but a new stay of Jesus in Galilee, that would also tie in better with ch. 5 than with ch. 6, where Jesus already is in Galilee.

There is much to be said against this explanation of 7:1, as we will see when we get there. If one focuses, therefore, chiefly on the lack of a proper transition between chs. 5 and 6, it cannot be denied that the hypothesis of their reversal has some appeal. And scholars who as a rule make sparing use of such reconstructions of the traditional sequence of the Fourth Gospel do adopt this hypothesis.¹ One may question, however, to what degree the Evangelist felt it necessary to give the reader detailed insight into the chronological sequence of the events narrated; it is clear that the kerygmatic content of these events was of more importance to him. The repeated “after this” in 5:1; 6:1; and 7:1 is very general; it allows room for intervening occurrences and offers only a very general indication of the chronological connection between the conceptual sequences thus woven together. If in this connection one bears in mind that for John Galilee was Jesus’ real and ongoing place of residence, then the absence of a clear chronological and local transition between chs. 5 and 6 is not as strange or striking as it may seem at first sight. In that case the journey to and stay at Jerusalem in ch. 5 would constitute a temporary break—motivated by one of the great feasts—in Jesus’ ongoing residence in Galilee. Then ch. 6 simply continues the story of this residence, one that is quite intelligible even apart from any mention of Jesus’ return from the feast. If one further accepts (as we will explain) that the opening words of 7:1 (“after this”) refer to the continuation (and not a resumption) of Jesus’ going about in Galilee, then, from the perspective of geographical clarity, there is no longer any compelling reason to deviate from the traditional sequence of chs. 5 and 6. The case is rather that then the “infrastructure” of chs. 4–7 will thus become clearer to us.

What seems more important, however, is the content of these chapters. From the vantage point of the construction of the Gospel, as we have seen, the new start at Jerusalem and the self-revelation of Jesus as the Son of God as the central content in ch. 5 are most meaningful. If one reverses the order of chs. 5 and 6, the most crucial issues are already settled in Galilee before there has occurred even an initial great confrontation in Jerusalem over Jesus’ sonship like the one in ch. 5. Moreover, from the perspective of content ch. 6 presupposes ch. 5 rather than vice versa. It is only against the christological background of Jesus’ self-revelation as the Son that the soteriological discourse about the bread that has come down from heaven, along with Jesus’ calling his flesh the true food and his blood the true drink, get their true meaning. This will constantly be in evidence in the exposition of ch. 6. Accordingly, it is specifically with a view to the material construction of the Johannine kerygma that we shall adhere to the traditional sequence of chs. 5 and 6, which also has no manuscript witness against it.

5:1-18

The Healing of a Paralytic at Bethesda, Conflict over the Sabbath

1 The transition from ch. 4 to ch. 5 follows a standard form (cf. 6:1; 7:1). If one does not accept the transposition of chs. 5 and 6 (see above), one may be surprised at first that, whereas in ch. 4—to escape the threatening hostility of the Pharisees—Jesus left Judea and went to Galilee, the setting of the narrative that now follows is again Jerusalem. But the formula “after this” is very general; it says nothing about the duration of the intervening time and indicates little more than a change of subject. Moreover, the return to Galilee, the (permanent) place of residence, does not mean that Jesus will no longer go as a pilgrim to the great feasts at Jerusalem. Also “a feast”² is very general. If one follows the transposition hypothesis, 5:1 might refer back to 6:4. But the striking reference to “a feast of the Jews” (see the comments on 2:13) does not so much assume a non-Jewish readership as the temporal and material distance that had developed at the time of this Gospel between the Christian church and the situation to which the story takes us. The character of the feast remains obscure throughout the story and all efforts to identify it and to establish a material connection between the feast and the story lack a solid foundation. At stake in what follows is rather the issue of the sabbath (cf. comments on vs. 9b), an issue that was undoubtedly still relevant to the first readers.

2-4 The miracle story that now follows has the traditional form also familiar from the Synoptic Gospels: depiction of the situation and of the seriousness of the illness (“thirty-eight years”), dialogue between Jesus and the sick person, and the immediate marvelous effect. One is struck by the detailed depiction of the situation, which assumes precise topographical knowledge (confirmed by excavations).³ There is mention of a pool situated by the Sheep Gate⁴ that in “Hebrew” (i.e., Aramaic) is called Bethesda or, according to other readings, Bethzatha.⁵ The porticoes mentioned have also been uncovered by excavations, so that speculations about the number five (relating it to the number of the books of Moses, for example) have become even more incredible than they already were.

Many invalids sought healing at this place: the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed.⁶ Vs. 7 shows that therapeutic significance was attributed to the periodic “troubling” of the water, and some translations have in vs. 3 the words “waiting for the moving of the water,” which, though they agree with the intent of the author, because of the weaker textual witness and because addition is more likely than omission, are to be regarded as a later gloss. This is even more true in vs. 4 in the mention of “an angel of the Lord who at certain times went down into the pool and troubled the water; whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed of whatever disease he had,” a reading universally regarded as inauthentic. This insertion probably expresses a folk belief, associated with certain therapeutic springs, that angels from time to time made the water of the pool bubble or spout up. It is not clear that the words of the paralytic in vs. 7 were also so intended. Apparently for him, too, the moment when the water was “troubled” was important.

5 It is further said of this man that he had been sick for thirty-eight years. We do not know what was wrong, but the manner of his healing clearly indicates paralysis (cf. Mt. 9:6 par.). The length of time is mentioned in order to highlight the seriousness of the ailment and the hopeless condition of the man.

6 A special motif is that the initiative for the healing proceeds from Jesus. Jesus “saw him” here, and as elsewhere this is an introduction to action (cf. 9:1; Lk. 7:13, etc.). That Jesus knew (cf. 9:1, 2) that the man had been sick for a long time shows that Jesus not only caught sight of him among the many others but saw him in the depth of his misery. Hence the words with which Jesus addresses him (“Do you want to be healed?”) are not just a way of starting a conversation but an indirect offer, based on the power and authority at Jesus’ disposal, to which he called the sick man’s attention as a new possibility.

7 But this man, who did not know Jesus (vs. 13), saw no other possibility than the therapeutic power of the water for his healing. He therefore politely answered that he had “no one” to help him and hence always came too late. This raises all kinds of questions: In all the time that the man had been sick had there never been a person willing to help him? And had none of the other patients ever been willing to let him go first? One can infer—correctly—from this that, even if the water had therapeutic qualities, this was undoubtedly a matter of trying to reach it not just once but over and over, and even then it was not enough to heal. Proceeding along that line one can then assume that Jesus’ question was intended to make the man aware of the hopelessness of seeking healing in this manner. But for all such reflections there is no place within the framework of this story (as in so many others). What we have here is a snapshot of a man doomed for years to powerlessness on account of an incurable illness, looking in vain for a miracle to happen, who had no one (or no one left?) to assist him in this predicament. To such a person Jesus comes with his question, a question full of power and promise: “Do you want to be healed?”

8, 9a The account of the miracle is as restricted to essentials as the description of the man’s misery has been.⁷ The striking similarity between this passage and Mt. 9:6 par. shows how utterances like this were fixed in the tradition. The word “rise”⁸ is going to play a very essential role in what follows (cf. vs. 21). For the paralytic to carry his pallet⁹ home manifested the reversal in his fortunes: no longer does the bed carry a powerless man but, with vitality to spare, he (triumphantly) carries the bed. For now there is no mention of any other reaction. The entire focus is on the manifestation of Jesus’ glory.

The statement in vs. 9b that all this took place on a sabbath comes after the action has been described, as in ch. 9, and has occasioned the hypothesis that what now follows—with the exception perhaps of vs. 14—is an expansion of the healing story that the Evangelist is supposed to have used as a fitting introduction to his real topic: Jesus’ self-witness as the Son of God.¹⁰ Others even believe that the sabbath issue has been imported into the story and, in fact, works there as a disturbing factor.¹¹ But in whatever way one imagines the combination of the different elements—the miracle, the sabbath, Jesus’ dispute with “the Jews”—it cannot be denied that in the text as we have it they constitute an organic unity and cannot do without each other as the story stands.

First, the story as such can hardly be cut in two. It clearly functions, as we shall see later, as the counterpart to the story in ch. 9 of the man born blind. The point here is not just the healing but, as in ch. 9, the reaction to the healing. It is also hard to detach vs. 14 from its context in order to let it serve as the conclusion of the story in vss. 1-9a (which would in that case come to a very abrupt end). The shift from Bethesda to the temple is not explained until vs. 13, and the meaning of Jesus’ statement in vs. 14 (“See, you are well! Sin no more that nothing worse befall you”) can only be understood in the broader context of the story as it involves the man (see the comments).

Second, the subsequent dialogue about Jesus’ “works” presupposes an antecedent miracle (cf. vs. 20; see also vss. 36ff.), and, as indicated, the character of the “works” has a significant point of connection with the “rising” of the paralytic (vs. 21).

Third, while it is true that the story of the healing can also be understood by itself without the fact of the sabbath (cf. Mt. 9:2-8), the same cannot be said about the point of Jesus’ discourse in vs. 19. This discourse is framed apologetically as a response to an apparently antecedent indictment, and its argumentation is totally shaped by the sabbath pronouncement in vs. 17.

On balance, therefore, it is hard to see why the profound and harmonious integration of all these elements has to be explained as secondary simply because “the element of the sabbath” does not come up from the very start but only in vs. 9b—a construction that returns in precisely the same way in 9:14 but apparently does not occasion the same problems there.

10 It has been correctly said that in order to understand a story like this one must know the enormous significance of the sanctity of the sabbath for the Judaism of that day (and thereafter).¹² In whatever respect Pharisaism may have been tolerant, in regard to the sabbath it was uncompromising. The casuistry as to what was and was not allowed on the sabbath had been refined to the smallest details. In the Mishnaic tractate on the sabbath carrying objects from one domain to another was expressly forbidden.¹³ Accordingly, it is not surprising that—after the dispute between Jesus and the Jews about the temple (2:14-22)—the Evangelist now gives such a prominent place to the Jewish application of the sabbath commandment as a critical point of departure for Jesus’ confrontation with the Jewish leaders. That the conflict broke out over the seemingly innocuous detail of a man carrying his mat does not detract from the importance of the matter. One may infer from the way the Jews addressed the man that they were aware of what moved him to carry his mat on the sabbath. He did not just carry “a” mat, but “his” mat (vss. 9-11), that is, the mat on which he had lain so long as a powerless person. And he carried it not because of any urgency to stow it away, but as a demonstration of his healing. Which was how Jesus intended it: not as a challenge to the sabbath commandment but as a sign of victory over suffering and death and thus of the glory of God. That all this did not count in the judgment of the Jews shows that at issue between Jesus and them was not merely a stricter or more relaxed view of the sabbath but—as is also evident from the continuing dispute over the sabbath in 7:19ff.—the nature of the law as the expression of the will of God and hence Jesus’ authority as the one sent by the Father. It is this “theocentric” viewpoint that dominates in what follows (vss. 17, 19-30) and that makes this seemingly banal conflict over carrying a mat on the sabbath the occasion for the self-revelation of Jesus as the Son of God (here, perhaps, in the whole Gospel at its most central and fundamental).

11-13 But first the Evangelist still focuses on the healed man himself. It has correctly been pointed out that the role he plays in the story is very different from that of the man born blind in ch. 9. This man remains totally out of harm’s way. Responding to the verdict of “the Jews,” he refers them to the one who has healed him and instructed him to carry away his mat. When they continue to question him he has nothing to say (vs. 13) because he does not know who has healed him and because, with the crowd around, Jesus has gotten away. Having thus transferred responsibility for his conduct to Jesus, whom he does not know, he evidently sees a chance to dispose of his interrogators with impunity and proceed, as vs. 14 indicates, to the temple (i.e., the temple courtyard), a privilege he had long had to forgo and a place where, in the midst of many pilgrims, he could rejoice as nowhere else in his newfound health.

14 But though Jesus had thus gone on his way, he was not finished talking with the healed man. When he “found” (cf. comments on 1:41ff.) the man in the temple courtyard near where he had been healed, he also spoke to him (as did “the Jews,” vs. 10) about his healing, but with a warning: “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you.” Commentators have often viewed this utterance as contradicting the answer Jesus gave his disciples with regard to the man born blind, where he rejects the notion of any causal connection between congenital blindness and antecedent sin (9:2).

But the connection he suggests here is of a more general kind and reminds one of the statement in Mt. 9:2 par.: Jesus’ works of healing do not occur outside the circle of forgiveness of sin. Rather, they are the outflow of it, proof that in Jesus God reaches out to humankind in its totality, which means, above all, in its estrangement from God. That which Jesus gives is more than healing and relief from suffering (see the comments on 4:48ff.). Accordingly the warning addressed to the healed man (“Sin no more …”)¹⁴ does not relate to a specific sin by which the man might bring a worse illness or handicap upon his head but to the threatening danger of being content with the cure he has received without becoming conscious of his much deeper lostness as a sinner before God and rising from it. The “worse thing” that would then befall him would be not just a worse illness or accident but nothing less than the judgment of God (cf. Lk. 13:1-5). It is in that sense that the statement “you are well” echoes the question “do you want to be healed?”; it is related not only to rising from the sickbed but also to what Jesus was to call later “the greater works” of “rising” and “making alive,” for which the Father had given him all power (vs. 20). As he now addresses this man on the point of his sin, Jesus wants to open the eyes and the life of the man to that greater experience, indispensable also to him, lest it also be true of him that his last state should be “worse” than the first (cf. Mt. 12:45).

15 Of the healed paralytic, as his only reaction to this second encounter with Jesus, it is only reported that he went to the Jewish authorities and told them who had healed him. With that he disappears from the account. All that follows is the action of “the Jews” against Jesus, for which the man has provided them with the necessary evidence (vs. 16).

It is true that the Evangelist thus proceeds directly to the essential point of the narrative, but one cannot help asking whether precisely the austerity with which he depicts the role of the healed man and the abruptness with which he ends it do not have a deeper meaning. Interpreters deal with it in various ways. Schlatter “historicizes”: by making Jesus known to the Jews the man wanted to free himself from the suspicion that he opposed the validity of the sabbath commandment.¹⁵ Bultmann recognizes that this could be a motive but thinks that thereby one goes outside the purpose of the narrative.¹⁶ Brown believes that the story portrays a true-to-life character but serves no theological purpose. Brown argues for the originality of the tradition (over against later literary invention). He then describes the character of the man as “unimaginative,” as marked by “a chronic inability to seize opportunity,” an example of “real dullness” (letting his benefactor slip away without asking his name). That he repays Jesus by reporting him to the Jews is, according to Brown, to be viewed less as “an example of treachery” (as Theodore of Mopsuestia urges in his commentary on John) than of “persistent naiveté.”¹⁷ It is questionable, however, whether, alongside all the marks of genuineness the tradition displays, one may also attribute to it such psychological finesse in the portrayal of characters. Generally speaking, one can certainly not rank this as one of its marks.

Another approach, one that involves the role of the healed man in the kerygmatic thrust of the story, seems more acceptable. For this a compromise with the story of the man born blind (ch. 9), which in many respects runs parallel, offers the key. Not only are both stories governed from the start by the purpose of the healings (cf. 5:14 and 9:1-4), but their details also show a striking resemblance. In both Jesus “saw a man” (9:1; cf. 5:5, 6), the healed man is called to give account (5:10; 9:13), the man does not know where Jesus is (5:13; 9:12), and Jesus later encounters him and speaks with him (5:14; 9:35ff.). But while the healed paralytic here places all responsibility for the violation of the sabbath on Jesus’ shoulders (5:12), the blind man increasingly defends Jesus and even takes his side to the degree that the Jews excommunicate him (9:24-34). And when Jesus then “finds” him and reveals himself to him, he falls down at Jesus’ feet and acknowledges him as the Son of man (9:38). But the healed paralytic returns to “the Jews” (5:15). He takes their side, remains in his old world, and does not let himself be led out of it by Jesus, neither by his healing nor by the warning word of farewell. This involves more than weakness of character. It is a portrayal of people who will not let themselves be moved to enter the kingdom of God by Jesus’ power and words, no matter how liberating the effect of those words. This story thus represents a particular response to the gospel, one with which, without any further explanation, the Evangelist unmistakably confronts his readers.¹⁸

Verse 16 takes us to the actual core of the story: the conflict between “the Jews” and Jesus. That they persecuted him (because he did “these things”¹⁹ on the sabbath) indicates the seriousness of the matter. Some scholars assume this entailed a formal judicial process, even a trial before a sanhedrin. Vss. 17-47 would then represent Jesus’ defense.²⁰ But the further course of the narrative does not point in that direction. In vss. 19-47 Jesus alone is the speaker and there is nothing about a trial—no verdict or adjournment. The “persecution” was a conspiracy against Jesus’ life (vs. 18; cf. also Mt. 12:14; Mk. 3:6). The imperfect tense verbs in vss. 16 and 18 speak not just of the immediate reaction to what has happened in vs. 15 but of the continuing position of “the Jews” vis-à-vis Jesus, arising from that reaction.

Verse 17 contains Jesus’ fundamental answer and the basis for the entire discourse that begins in vs. 19. In this answer Jesus raises the conflict over the sabbath to the level on which he wants people to understand both the sabbath and his own “work” on the sabbath: “My Father is still working, and I am working.” Just what is meant by the Father’s work and his own concurrent work will become clearer in what follows. But with this statement the difference between him and those who are against him is established. No more than in the conflict over the temple (2:18ff.) does the dispute concern the manner of worshiping God or the measure of strictness to be applied in the observance of the law. The lines are, rather, drawn over God in the temple and over Jesus’ authority to act and to speak with regard to temple and sabbath as the One sent by the Father.

18 “The Jews” do not see the underlying unity between the two issues: they speak in terms of “not only, but also.” But they do understand where the radical break between them and Jesus is located. In their own words: he not only makes (the law of) the sabbath non-binding, thus “breaking” it, but also, by calling God his Father, makes “himself equal with God”—for them the most direct kind of blasphemy. Jesus’ reply, which begins in vs. 19, is a response to both charges.

5:19-30

The Self-Witness of God’s Son²¹

19–20a The discourse that now follows is very important for the entire construction of the Gospel (see the Introduction). The first part contains Jesus’ real defense against this double charge spelled out in vs. 18: Vss. 19 and 20 are closely related to vs. 17 and therefore echo the conflict over the sabbath. At the same time this beginning of the reply also takes up the charge that Jesus would make himself equal with God. With great emphasis (“Truly, truly …”) Jesus rejects any idea that he would ascribe to himself the authority and freedom that belong only to God and thus put himself next to God. He appeals to the fact that as Son he is not able to do anything of his own accord if he does not see the Father do it (vs. 19). And that is again (vs. 20) because the love of the Father goes out to him (cf. 3:35) and makes him a participant in all that he does. Hence this entire passage places Jesus’ “working” on the sabbath—absolutely excluding every form of presumption—on the basis of his relationship to the Father (cf. 2:16).

In this connection, some interpreters speak of a parable that expresses, in general terms, a son’s dependence vis-à-vis his father and that is used here to illustrate Jesus’ relationship to God: “if we read Son and Father without the capital letters …, we have a little picture of an apprenticed son, learning his trade in his father’s shop, as Jesus himself did at Nazareth.”²² However attractive at first sight this view may be, there are significant objections against it. In the first place one has to assume that the absolute reference to “the” father and “the” son first occurs parabolically and then, without no indication, passes directly to God as “the Father” and Christ as “the Son” in vs. 20b, and that the father and the son occur first as subjects in the parable (vs. 20a) and then (vs. 20b) in divine reality—a rhetorical form that is hard to place.

Furthermore, the Fourth Gospel repeatedly traces Jesus’ speech and action to what he “saw” and “heard” (while with the Father), and in that connection there is no reason to think of a parable. Vs. 30 mentions “hearing,” which is parallel to “seeing” in vs. 19. In 3:32 “seeing” and “hearing” occur together, while 8:26, 40; 15:15 mention only “hearing.” These texts expressly associate this “seeing” and “hearing” with Jesus’ relationship to the Father, clearly not by means of a parable, but by direct reference to God as the Father (cf. 1:18; 6:46; 8:26, 38, 40). There is no reason to interpret 5:19ff. differently. Here the Son’s “seeing,” the Father’s “love” for the Son, and the Father’s “showing” the Son all that the Father does have the surplus value of the unique relationship between Christ as Son and God as Father, extending right into preexistence (see the comments on 3:11, 32). Vs. 19 does, to be sure, mention “seeing” in the present (by contrast with the other texts mentioned), whereas vs. 25 has “hearing” in the future. From this alternation it is clear that in “seeing” and “hearing” we are dealing with neither just a “program” that the Father has given the Son once for all to carry out nor with incidental ad hoc instructions, but with the continuing agreement of the Son’s speech and action with the Father, agreement rooted in his oneness with the Father (cf. 1:1a) and in the absolute authority bestowed on him as the beloved Son (cf. 3:35; 5:21ff.). Hence it can be said that the Son speaks and acts in accord both with what he has seen and heard from the Father and with what the Father will show him.

Furthermore, there should be no misunderstanding with regard to the thrust of the statement “the Son can do nothing of his own accord but only.…” These words have often been understood as an expression of Jesus’ modesty and sense of subordination to the Father by means of which he is said to have defended himself against the accusation of “the Jews” that he made himself equal with God. Jesus does not reject equality with God, however, but the idea that he made himself equal with God. “Of his own accord” means apart from the Father, on his own authority. Over against this vss. 19 and 20 place all the emphasis on Jesus’ fellowship and unity with the Father. That the Son “can do nothing of his own accord but only what he sees the Father doing” is explained not by subordination to the Father but by Sonship: “For whatever he [the Father] does, that the Son does likewise” (vs. 19c).²³ That is what makes him the Son. Similarly vs. 20a: “For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing.” That is what makes him the Father.

So-called liberal exegesis of the turn of the twentieth century attempted to understand this unity of Jesus with God in a moral sense, as a unity realized in Jesus’ decisions and action, a unity that could and should be the final outcome of every person’s relationship with God. But, as Bultmann correctly remarks, vs. 19 “seeks to guard against just a way of looking at him.”²⁴ The “not of his own accord” that runs through this whole Gospel (neither “acting” of his own accord [5:19; 8:28], “speaking” on his own [7:17; 12:49; 14:10], nor “coming” of his own accord [7:28; 8:42, etc.]) is the negative counterpart of all the statements that say that the Son does what the Father does, does the will of the Father, acts on the authority of the Father, that those who see him see the Father, and that he and the Father are one (e.g., 4:34; 8:16, 29; 14:9; 17:2, 23).²⁵

All this brings to expression, in a variety of phrases and innumerable variations, the great themes of the prologue: the Word became flesh and the Word was God, that is, both the identity of action and speech of the Father and the Son, an identity proceeding from the deity of the Word, and the distinctive discourse about Father and Son. Because the Word became flesh, the Father, by sending the Son and putting all things into his hand, so far from remaining behind in heaven, makes himself present in all that the Son does, so that he that has seen the Son has also seen the Father. But in the incarnation of the Word the Son reveals himself as distinct from the Father, as the one who was sent by the Father and who does what he sees the Father doing and what the Father “will show him.” Hence the unity of the Father and the Son cannot be expressed apart from the distinctive discourse about both; and, on the other hand, this distinctiveness never detracts from the unity.

In his commentary Bultmann deals at length with this relationship, upholding its utter uniqueness against all ethicizing interpretations and interpreting the unity of Father and Son only partially on the analogy of the relationship to God of the Old Testament messengers from God and prophets. But he argues that the Fourth Gospel does not present this unity “in order to provide the basis for a speculative Christology.”²⁶ When it is said that the Son does not act “of his own accord,” that he has been sent and acts on behalf of his Father, this reference to his origin only attests and grounds his significance to those who see and hear him. According to Bultmann, the statements about Jesus’ equality with God (one that hears him hears God; one that sees him sees God; cf. 3:34; 17:8; 14:9) mark the situation of those who hear and see Jesus and do not define the “metaphysical nature” of the Revealer himself. In this regard Bultmann cites Calvin, who wrote that in the Arian conflict both sides mistakenly appealed to Jn. 5:19 because “this discourse is not concerned with the naked divinity of Christ” but with “the Son of God as He was manifested in the flesh.”²⁷

Bultmann further believes that in the Fourth Gospel this wholly unique relationship of the Son and the Father and the discourse of Jesus authorized by it are expressed in the terminology of the Gnostic myth. “The latter speaks of the sending of a preexistent divine being that in its metaphysical mode of being is equal to God and was sent by him to carry out his work of revelation.” While John distanced himself from the content of this mythology, he is said to have used its images and concepts to describe the nonmythological historical reality and validity of Jesus’ words and works as the words and works of God.²⁸

Undoubtedly all this contains the important truth—mentioned in our discussion of the prologue (see on ch. 1 above)—that in the Fourth Gospel Jesus’ Sonship, deity, and preexistence are always referred to in close connection with his work as man, as the incarnate Word, and hence always “on two levels.”²⁹ It is also clear that the basis—and “background”—of this discourse about his unique relationship to God does not lie in an ontological christology, into which and against which the significance of the historic self-revelation of Jesus as the Son of God could be fitted and understood, but that, conversely, it is precisely this historic self-revelation that is fundamental for the Fourth Gospel’s “christology.”

But that does not mean, as Bultmann thinks,³⁰ that everything the Fourth Gospel says about Jesus’ unique relationship to God as that of the Son to the Father is there only to bring out the meaning that his words and actions have for those who see and hear him and that this meaning could be abstracted from the identity of his person. Other commentators also want to distinguish between a “functional” and an “ontological” christology: the latter is only the “mythological” or “ideological” expression of the meaning of the work of Jesus of Nazareth. But it has been correctly noted, for example by de Jonge, that in order to bring out the distinctive and unique character of Jesus’ discourse and actions John had to go back to the origin of him who spoke and acted thus; and therefore that it does not make sense to play “action” off against “being,” “function” against “nature.” And in texts that some characterize as using “mythological” language, such as the descent of the Son “from heaven” or “from above,” even there one would have to say that the Evangelist is dealing with the “nature” of the Son in his relationship with the Father.³¹

Hence, while one can correctly say that the Fourth Gospel refers repeatedly to Jesus’ origin, Sonship, and preexistence in close connection with and as grounding for the meaning of his work,³² such reference makes sense only if it is meant, not in an ideological or mythological sense, but ontologically. For however true it is that “to know Christ” is “to know his benefits,” that does not mean that as the Son of God Christ derives his existence (his “nature”) from what he means to those who see and hear him. Rather, it is the grand goal of the Fourth Gospel to trace the miracle of Jesus’ work to the miracle of his person and to bring out that because he is the Christ, the Son of God, he gives life to everyone who believes in him.

This implies that it is extremely unlikely that, for his readers in their confrontation with the synagogue, John, and Jesus himself in his dialogue with the Jews, spoke of this origin and “nature” in the language and imagery of a Gentile-syncretistic mythology and not from the knowledge of that God whom Jesus called his Father and whom Israel had always known, the God of “the beginning.” It is of the Word of this God, who in the beginning created life and light, that the Evangelist speaks when in his prologue he mainly traces the “meaning” of Jesus’ words and works to his origin and “nature.” It is also the nature of the incarnate Word that forms the basis for the pronouncements in ch. 5, which are pivotal for the entire Gospel, to the effect that “the Son can do nothing of his own accord but only what he sees the Father doing” because “the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing.”

Verses 20b-23 refer to the nature of these works, still in connection with Jesus’ appeal to the works of his Father (vs. 17). The idea that though God rested from his work of creation (Gn. 2:2ff.; Ex. 20:11; 31:17) nevertheless continues to work was not disputed among the Jews. The rabbinic literature does reflect on the nature of God’s work, specifically in regard to what he did, and did not, continue to do after creation.³³

But the Johannine text does not allude to any of this; Jesus simply assumes the continuity of the divine work, and what he understands by it becomes clear enough: It is the works that are now becoming manifest in what the Son is doing, the works of divine love that are making their way into the world in the work of the Son (vs. 20; cf. 3:35). These include the healing of the cripple, and other works;³⁴ but they will be even “greater than these”: raising the dead, giving them life, and the exercise of judgment (vss. 21, 22). In other words, they are the works that usher in the great future, the coming of the kingdom of God, and that therefore are to give Jesus’ opponents even more reason to marvel at him than they did now in their perplexity and unbelief (cf. 7:21).

There is now no further mention of the sabbath. The conflict over the sabbath serves as the occasion and basis for the grand self-revelation and self-legitimation of Jesus as the Son of God. But, it is implied, that is all that needs to be said about the sabbath. The issue does not sink out of sight in this mighty christology as an insignificant minor matter but is rather incorporated into, and made serviceable to, the consummating and saving work of God in the Son—even on the sabbath. Thus the christological understanding of the sabbath in the Fourth Gospel is combined with the soteriological and anthropological approach of the Synoptic Gospels (e.g., Lk. 13:15). Conversely, the condemnation of the healing of a paralytic on the sabbath is an abstraction of the sabbath law from the whole of redemptive revelation and hence a reversal of the meaning of the law, an idea developed further in 7:19-24.³⁵ Jesus’ warning to the healed man (vs. 14) now becomes fully clear. The healing is not an incidental case occurring within the confining context of the old life; it is rather an announcement of the “greater works” of God with which everyone who meets Jesus is confronted and by which the door to a new life and another world is opened (cf. also 9:3).³⁶

For the Father also performs those greater works of the consummation and the future only in and through the Son (vss. 21, 22). The Son, too, like the Father, gives life “to whom he will,” not of course as an act of self-willed, much less arbitrary, conduct apart from the Father, but precisely in virtue of the unlimited power and authority given to him by the Father (cf. 3:35). So also “the Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son” (cf. Dn. 7:10; 13f.; see also comments on vs. 27) must be understood in the sense of 3:17ff., namely as the inseparable obverse of the saving and life-giving mission of the Son, for those who reject him in unbelief. And all that (vs. 23) in order that the Son, as he does in all the work of the Father, might share in the honor extended by all who honor the Father. For the one is not possible without the other.

This last assertion of course again touches upon the great breaking point between church and synagogue, in connection with which the Evangelist doubtlessly gave the statement this pointed form: “does not honor the Father.” Not as if by this statement the whole of Israelite religion and worship was called into question, for its very ground rule was that the Lord God is one. The point at issue is that the one God can be known and honored in no other way than in the Son and that only in the revelation of the Son is the oneness of God manifest in its utter uniqueness. The inseparability of the adoration of the Father from that of the Son prohibits any notion that “next to” and “besides” God as Father, the Son as “a second party” must be honored as God. For by giving all things into the hands of the Son, the Father does not retreat to a position behind the Son, but posits himself as present in the Son. God is not two but one. But at the same time and for the same reason he can and will be known in no way other than in the Son and thus honored by all who know and honor him as God and Father.³⁷ Again from this pronouncement it is clear how the oneness of the Son with the Father, of Christ with God, is the fundamental motif of Jesus’ entire self-revelation.

24 No less grand and striking, however, is the soteriological conclusion that, with the same emphasis and authority as that with which Jesus spoke about himself (cf. vs. 19), is drawn from this self-revelation: that for one who hears his word and believes God who sent him³⁸ eternal life has already begun, the judgment of God has lost its fearsomeness, and death has been superseded. What makes this pronouncement special is, of course, that the final decision that determines the life and future of human beings and that is spoken of here and in what follows in eschatological language is transferred from the future to the present, in accordance with the word that Jesus speaks as the one sent by the Father and with the answer people give to it. The distinction between present and future is not thereby canceled out (see below), but eternal life does begin qualitatively in the present. Death also gains a different content than what it usually has for humans: already in this life it is experienced as a passage to true eternal life and thus loses its all-threatening, ultimately critical character for the future. It is no longer ahead of a person but behind him or her.

25 This is confirmed in a new and most emphatic statement. As an expression of Jesus’ messianic consciousness, it may perhaps be considered the most powerful pronouncement in John’s Gospel, one in which what was said in vs. 24 is concretized in an extreme and almost paradoxical way: “The hour is coming, and now is [as in 4:23!] that the dead will hear the Son of God’s voice, and those who hear will live.” The reference here is not only to the dead in the great future. For the voice of the Son of God that calls the dead to life resounds now. Those who hear this voice will not just live in the future, therefore, but now already they will “pass out of death into life,” delivered from the power of death by the voice that calls them to rise (cf. 1 Jn. 3:14).

26 All this is again motivated (cf. vs. 21) by means of an appeal to Jesus’ Sonship. The expression “to have life in oneself” is not intended as a general description of the divine “being” but as a reference to the fact that, just as the Father as Creator and Consummator possesses life, he has given that possession also to the Son, not merely as the executor of incidental assignments but in the absolute sense of sharing in the Father’s power. And it is on account of that power and authority (see also vss. 27ff.) that the great decisive “hour” of God is not only coming but here. The second does not suspend the first. The hour that is continues to come, just as he who has come can still be called the Coming One (cf. 1 Jn. 2:28; 3:2). But the central point in this context is that both the “coming” and “the having come” of the hour—both future and present, salvation and judgment—have their ground in Jesus as the one sent by the Father, the Son of God clothed with all authority. For that reason all the questions one might wish to ask here can only be answered in terms of him, the nature of his mission and sonship.

We are not expressly told what it means to “have eternal life” or to “pass out of death into life.” The same thing is described elsewhere in soteriological terms like “light” (cf. 1:4), as not “remaining under the wrath of God” (3:36), as becoming “children of God” (1:12f.). It does not consist in a temporary or incidental anticipation of the heavenly life, an ecstatic state, being temporarily lifted up out of time, or the like. Nor does the death from which those who hear the voice of the Son of God rise to life consist only of the experience or fear of death, in which a person shrinks back from the limit of his possibilities and “existence”—for one of the marks of this state is that one can think himself alive (e.g., 9:40, 41). The criterion of what “life” or “death” means and of what a person should or should not desire, fear, or not fear does not lie in what he understands of them from within himself, but in hearing the word of the Son of God, that is, in what the Son of God promises to and demands from him in the way of faith. As for life, it is life, light, and freedom in him (3:16; 20:31; 16:33, etc.); and as for death, it is the death of which the Son makes one aware and from which he wants a person to arise.

But, as already indicated, all that is not summed up at once here. The issue here is, above all, the that: that it is he, that life is in his name, and in the path he travels as the one sent for that purpose by God (see also on 8:12). It is this that that was and remained the core issue in the continuing confrontation between church and synagogue and (we may add) between church and world and between a person and himself or herself.

In verse 27 this self-legitimation of Jesus as the one who, like God, “has life in himself” is continued, but now from the perspective of the coming “hour.” On the meaning of this verse, especially as the transition to vss. 28 and 29, there is great diversity of opinion.

Some interpret the striking transition from the “realized” eschatology of vss. 25 and 26 to the future in vss. 28 and 29 as a later insertion. So specifically Bultmann,³⁹ according to whom a later redactor reintroduced, by way of a simple addition, “the popular eschatology … so radically swept aside” by the Evangelist in vss. 24 and 25. In this way, the bringing into the present of the great future (which Bultmann so much values as the Evangelist’s “demythologizing”) in the word of the Son of God that acquits and judges now is said to have been neutralized by the redactor on account of the heresy it might yield (cf. 2 Tm. 2:18). Others, who reject the notion of a material set of opposites, nevertheless posit a theological development in the Evangelist in which the conception embodied in vss. 19-25 is said to represent another (probably later) phase of Johannine theology than that of vss. 26-30.⁴⁰

Still, however great the emphasis with which this Gospel stresses that salvation has already come and that eternal life has begun in the present, the idea that this realized eschatology is incompatible with the futuristic pronouncements of vss. 28 and 29 seems to me totally unacceptable. Already in the very statement that “the hour is coming and now is,” the future is included in so many words. If one surveys the entire Gospel,⁴¹ this becomes even clearer. One can hardly dismiss as incidental “corrections” or “accommodations”⁴² to “popular images,” the emphatically repeated pronouncements Jesus makes about raising believers up at the last day (6:39, 40ff.; cf. 12:48; together with 5:27-29!), given their content and the prominent place they occupy in ch. 6.⁴³ And even more, the entire basic structure of the Gospel (both “christological” and “soteriological”) is opposed to such a procedure. That believers “have” eternal life already in the present and have “passed out of death into life” (vss. 14-16, 24) does not exclude the idea that death also continues and that life is still full of threat and awaits a final redemption and glorification (cf. 11:25; 12:26; 14:2f.; 17:24). This is so partly because the mission of the Son, not finding its fulfillment in the present world, offers to his own, in his exaltation and glorification, a future that transcends the present world (cf. 16:33; 17:5, 24; 21:22). It is inconceivable, therefore, that the Evangelist, though his Gospel lacks lengthy prophecies like those in Mark 13 par., wanted to eliminate this future expectation in favor of a radically present “eschatology” whose only future consisted in being placed over and over before a decision and in freedom (an eschatology “in the Word”).

This salvation-historical unity of present and future, in which the two are inseparably bound up with, and determine, each other, can be maintained in this passage not only on the basis of general considerations but is no less present in the passage itself, specifically in the manner in which “the Son of man” occurs in the transitional verse, v. 27. There the pronouncement of vs. 22 that the Father “has given all judgment to the Son” is explained: “because he is the Son of man.” At first blush it may seem strange that to support the powers of the Son reference is made to the fact that he is “the Son of man.” But by this argument a line is being extended that is visible from the beginning (cf. 1:51; 3:13f.) and that continues in what follows (see on 6:27, 62; 12:23, 28), where in each instance the figure of the Son of man is advanced to express the transcendent character of Jesus’ messiahship and the all-embracing, present-and-future-encompassing mission of Jesus as the Son of God (on this see at length the comments on 1:51).

But nowhere more clearly than here do we learn that this title refers to “the Son of man” of Dn 7:13f., the one who comes on the clouds of heaven and is clothed with divine glory and unlimited power.⁴⁴ It is from within his self-identification with this “eschatological” figure and the divine qualities attributed to him that Jesus not only speaks of the transcendent (surpassing all human measure and power) meaning of his coming into the world already in 1:51 and 3:13, but here also traces his authority as the Son to call the dead to life now to the power given the Son of man to execute judgment (cf. also Mt. 19:28; 24:30f.; 25:31f.; 26:64; Mk. 8:38; 13:26f.; Lk. 21:27).

28, 29 For that reason those to whom Jesus is speaking should not “marvel”⁴⁵ at what has been said about the “voice” that calls the dead to life. What they should understand—but do not because of their unbelief (vs. 18)—is that in Jesus as the Son sent by the Father they are confronted with the great future that they themselves expect and are thus placed in the presence of him whose voice will one day be heard (not only by those who are listening now but) by all who are in the graves and who on hearing it will rise—those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment (see the comments on 3:20f.).

Hence in vss. 24-29 there is no question of two mutually exclusive eschatologies or of an “apocalyptic compensation” in vss. 28 and 29 for the “now” in vs. 25. We see, rather, the inseparable connection between the present and the future.⁴⁶ What is most prominent is the utterly unique relevance of this great future, as a result of which decisions are already being made now with regard to what will one day come to pass. On the other hand it is no less true that the relevance of the coming hour (“the hour is coming, and now is”) derives its basis and urgency from the fact that he who thus speaks (“on earth,” cf. Mt. 9:6) is the one who descended from heaven and who possesses eternal life in virtue of an authority that encompasses earth and heaven, present and future, and thus represents the salvation and judgment of God in its all-inclusive significance.

30 Here Jesus repeats what he said at the beginning of the pericope (cf. vs. 19: by thus speaking Jesus is not acting of his own accord but on behalf of and in fellowship with the Father) and applies it to the authority with which he judges: “as I hear, I judge.” Here again “hearing” is equivalent to “seeing” (see the comments on vs. 19). And “judging” presumably refers to the acquittal and judgment that are realized already now in his preaching. On account of his “hearing,” his fellowship with his Father, he does nothing “on his own authority,” on the basis of which they might charge him with blasphemy. Therefore his judgment is just, in accord with the standards of God. Nor is it his own will that he seeks to effect but the will of the one who sent him (cf. 4:34). And herein lies the transition to what follows, where the “witness,” that is, the legitimation of what has so far been said, becomes a separate topic of discussion.

5:31-47

Jesus’ “Witnesses,” the Unbelief of “the Jews”

31 In vss. 31-40 the concept of “witness” is central. The reference is to the witness in the judicial sphere. How can Jesus legitimate himself vis-à-vis these powerful pronouncements about himself? Even though in vs. 16 the word “persecute” is not meant in a formal juridical sense (see comments on vs. 16 and 8:14ff.), nevertheless there is between the Jewish authorities and Jesus a “case” in which he has to justify himself before his accusers in a way that is also valid for them. Therefore, what witnesses can he summon to testify on his behalf? In a way vs. 31 acknowledges the validity of such a demand. Here Jesus reacts to a judicial rule according to which, in an indictment, one cannot be exculpated on the basis of one’s own testimony.⁴⁷ Hence if Jesus were to appeal solely to himself (“bear witness to myself”), such testimony would not be “true,” that is, judicially valid.

32-35 The “other” who “bears witness to him” (vs. 32) is God (not John the Baptist, as is evident from vs. 34). Jesus’ comment that he “knows” that God’s testimony is “true” (i.e., valid) means something like: this testimony is conclusive for him even if his opponents do not want to acknowledge it (cf., e.g., 7:28). But they, too, had already received clear testimony concerning Jesus from John the Baptist (vs. 33). For this Jesus refers to their own delegation and the testimony it had furnished them (cf. 1:19ff.). It is not (vs. 34) as if he himself⁴⁸ were dependent on this testimony for the truth concerning himself. He does not depend for this knowledge on any human testimony. He mentions John because John was the great witness sent from God to lead Israel to faith (cf. 1:7, 31). Therefore, in order still to “save” his adversaries, Jesus confronts them even now with John’s testimony.

When he further calls John (vs. 35) “the burning and shining light,” he thus reminds them of the enormous impression John made at the time, in comparison with which the “light” emitted by all other teachers and preachers was dimmed (even though John was not “the” light that was to come into the world: 1:8; Lk. 1:78f.; cf. Mt. 11:7ff.; 21:25ff.). For John was the herald of the kingdom of heaven that Israel had so long awaited. The fact that even Jesus’ opponents had been “willing to rejoice for a while in [John’s] light” proves on the one hand that their own past testifies against them when they now pretend that for his claim to have been sent by God Jesus had no other witness than himself; but it also shows the superficiality with which they treated those who on behalf of God bore witness to the truth among them: “for a while” they had been pleased to let themselves be mesmerized by the power with which John announced the arrival of a new dawn for Israel. But in their fickleness they had soon turned away from him again (cf. Mt. 11:17, 18): they did not (and do not) have the word of God abiding in them (vs. 38; cf. Mt. 13:21).

36 Jesus himself—“I, however” in the emphatic position—is not dependent on John’s witness; he has a testimony greater than that of John. For this Jesus bases himself on the “works” that the Father “granted” him “to accomplish” (cf. the comments on 4:34). As is evident from the preceding mention of Jesus’ “works” (cf. vss. 17, 19-20),⁴⁹ this term refers to the content of Jesus’ entire mission, his miracles and his words; for the words, Jesus’ speaking with the authority of God’s Son “to make alive” and “to judge,” also belong to that which the Father has “granted” Jesus (cf. vss. 22, 26, 27). Implied in this, however, is that Jesus’ legitimation does not consist only in something outside his own actions, or in some additional verification from without, as the Jews desired (cf. Mt. 12:38ff.; 16:1ff.; 1 Co. 1:22), something that would furnish to everyone an “objective” proof of his heavenly origin. No person who cannot recognize the work, voice, and revelation of God in Jesus’ work itself will be persuaded of it by some other independent means.

37-38 Finally, in vs. 37, this is asserted one more time with all possible clarity and emphasis: “[accordingly] the Father who sent me—he it is who has borne witness to me,” namely in that which Jesus accomplished and said in virtue of the Father’s mandate and authorization. Noteworthy in that connection is the perfect tense: “has borne witness.” Although this may relate exclusively to Jesus’ works,⁵⁰ it may also mean that this witness began before the coming and work of Jesus (cf. vs. 39).

However this may be, starting with vs. 37b Jesus charges that his accusers, despite the many reasons for them to accept the testimony concerning him, persisted in their unbelief. The point of vs. 37b in the argumentation is somewhat unclear. The statement has some affinity with Dt. 4:12, where God’s “voice” and “form” are also referred to, though there, in the Sinai theophany, it is said that God’s voice was heard. If, as some interpreters now think,⁵¹ one reads in the present verse that already at Sinai the Jews evinced the attitude they now assume toward Jesus, then we are told here that the “hearing” at Sinai was not the genuine hearing of faith. But then again in vs. 38 God’s word is referred to as something they had received. It is questionable, therefore, that vs. 37b carries such a direct echo of Deuteronomy 4 as proof of the unbelief—manifesting itself even then—of the Jews. It seems rather that here again the reference is to “seeing” and “hearing” that are attributable only to the Son of God, and from the vantage point of which he speaks (cf. 1:18; 3:11; 5:19, 20; 6:46; 7:29). Jesus, then, is telling the Jews that, however much they as the people of the law pride themselves on their knowledge of God, they are barred from every form of direct access to God and that they are dependent on the testimony of others. And if, in keeping with this, Jesus then adds “and you do not have his word abiding in you,” that implies both that the word of God had nevertheless come to them (above all, of course, in the law that had been given them [cf. vss. 39ff., 45ff.], but also in John’s testimony) and that it had done them no good. For they did not have this word in them as something “abiding” (cf. vs. 35: “for a while”; 15:17; 1 Jn. 2:14, 24) as a guiding, life-directing word from God. Otherwise they would not, as now, react in unbelief toward him whom the God of that word had sent to them.⁵² They would have acknowledged him and not asked him for a testimony, for legitimation of his mission.

Verses 39 and 40 furnish further concretization of this point. Jesus refers his audience to the Scriptures, which did contain the word of God for them, and to their claim that they were students of it. The word used here for “search” or “explore” corresponds to a rabbinic term—daraš, cf. “midrash”—which denoted professional study and exposition of the law. It was Israel’s privilege to possess these Scriptures (cf. Ro. 3:1), the fountain of all salvation and life, hence Israel’s boast and glory (cf. Ro. 2:18ff.). The Jews believed that in the Scriptures they had, unlike other nations, received the divinely given means by which to acquire righteousness unto life, the means of “making alive” (cf. Gl. 3:21; Lv. 18:5). It is to this belief that Jesus refers with “You search⁵³ the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.” The intent of “you think”—also in light of vs. 39b and vss. 45ff.—is not to discredit the Scriptures as the source of light and life or, even less, to reject them altogether,⁵⁴ but to persuade Jesus’ hearers to distance themselves from the manner in which the Jews “searched” the Scriptures and believed they “had” life in that pursuit. For despite all their scrupulous examination of and boasting in the Scriptures, it escaped them that precisely those Scriptures could provide them with the evidence that they demanded from Jesus and could show them the way to eternal life. Jesus is not speaking here of specific Scripture passages but of the Scriptures as a whole, although, in view of vs. 45ff., we should probably think in particular of the books of Moses (cf. 1:45). Where and how these Scriptures testify of Jesus is not stated. Involved here is not just lack of insight into the Scriptures on the part of Jesus’ opponents but (vs. 40) their ill-will, which prevented them from coming to Jesus to have the life that he wanted to bestow on them. It was this inner resistance that obscured for them the true meaning of the Scriptures (cf. 2 Co. 3:14).

41-44 What constituted the real cause of this resistance and would, as long as there was no change, permanently block the road to faith is further now analyzed from a new vantage point (vss. 41-44), again with an appeal to Moses (vss. 45-47). Central here is the concept of “honor” or “glory” (see also 7:18; 8:50, 54), which is linked here with the verbs “receive” (vss. 41 and 44a) and “seek” (vs. 44b), meaning: “gain honor, status for oneself,” “vie for the favor of.” In this connection everything depends on from whom one “receives” honor and tries to obtain favor. Whereas Jesus (vs. 41) testifies of himself that he does not seek “glory from people,”⁵⁵ he states, in a very sharp declaration, that he has come to know⁵⁶ his opponents as people who do not “have the love of God within them” (cf. vs. 38).

The reasoning in vs. 42 is somewhat proleptic insofar as it states a priori the reason for what is said in vs. 43a, namely that Jesus came in his Father’s name but his opponents did not receive him. The reality of “coming in the name of the Father” as the one from whom Jesus derives his authority and credibility stands opposed here to seeking “glory from people” (vs. 41). But his opponents did not receive him because they did not have the love of God in them. What motivated them is that which counts and is considered “honorable” among humankind. For “if another comes in his own name, him you will receive” (vs. 43). “In his own name,” in contrast with vs. 43a, means “on his own authority” (cf. 7:18), deriving, that is, his credibility from that which he has to offer out of his own resources. They “receive,” that is, make room for, regard as trustworthy, the “other” when he “comes,” that is, when he plays his role among them, imposes his authority on them, and shares his favors with them. For in his coming he represents precisely that which counts as “glorious” and admirable among people. From patristic times there have been those who believed that this “other” is the devil or the Antichrist. It is more plausible that Jesus is referring to the false prophets or pseudo-messiahs who kept coming up in the history of the Jewish people (cf. Ac. 5:36f.) and would continue to do so (cf. Mt. 24:24 par.; 1 Jn. 2:18, etc.). But evidence for this is also lacking, nor is it implied in the context. Jesus is in fact speaking in very general terms about the way things are among people, how they try to impress each other and how they let themselves be impressed by each other.

But therein lies (vs. 44) the explanation for their lack of faith in him: “How would you be able to believe—you who [or “as long as you”].…” “Believe” occurs absolutely here, but what is meant is that which is at stake over and over throughout this entire Gospel: faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. We may assume that part of the background for this absolute formulation is found in the continuing confrontation between church and synagogue at the time this Gospel was written. In that context “the estimation of people” must have played a large role, especially on the part of Jews who out of fear of excommunication from the Jewish community could not persuade themselves to take the big step⁵⁷ to Christian faith (cf. 12:43). At the same time the culpable and objectionable character of this “inability” to believe is laid utterly bare, specifically in the case of those who, in virtue of their own spiritual background, should have known better.

To the glory people “receive from one another” Jesus opposes the seeking of glory (approval, favor) from the only God.⁵⁸ With “the only God” Jesus alludes to the great principle on which Israel’s religion was founded, namely that the LORD, Israel’s God, was one and as such commanded the people to love him with undivided love (cf. Dt. 6:4ff.). For that reason “honor” and glory are to be sought and found only in him—the glory of “the life” he wants to bestow on them (vs. 40). Here, too, Jesus confronts the Jews who contradict him with the choice for or against him in its absolute significance: it is a choice for the honor of God or for that which comes from humans. Again it is clear how in this connection he is not (as they think, vs. 18) seeking his “own glory” or advancing his “own name” but the glory of his Father, who, of course, they claim to honor as the only God (cf. 8:54).

45-47 Jesus’ repeated appeal to Moses has the same intent. When he asks them to believe and they refuse, they must not think that this is merely a matter between themselves and him or that he is therefore their accuser before the Father. Rather, their unbelief relates to their own sacred tradition, and thus the one who will accuse them is not Jesus but Moses, “on whom you set your hope.” Therefore they are, by their unbelief, undermining their own position. Some think “hope” here refers to the personal role ascribed to Moses as intercessor with God.⁵⁹ The contrast with “accuser” thereby becomes all the more striking. Still, what is presented here is primarily something other than the picture of Moses as the personal accuser before God in heaven.⁶⁰ For in vss. 46 and 47 the reference is expressly to Moses’ writings, in which Jesus’ opponents have to do with Moses and from the possession of which they derive their hope and assurance (cf. vs. 39). Accordingly, Moses is above all their accuser on account of and in those writings: “he wrote of me.” Therefore, Jesus can trace their unbelief in him to unbelief in Moses⁶¹ and can refer to Moses, on whom they placed their hope as intercessor and advocate, as their accuser.

Here again, as in vs. 39, the question is whether the reference is to a specific prophecy of Moses (Deuteromony 18?) or in a broader sense to the character of all of Moses’ writings as witnessing to Christ (cf. 1:45; 8:56). The latter might be suggested by the plural: his “writings” (vs. 47).⁶² In any case, if the Jews had “believed Moses” and had understood in its true meaning Moses’ reference to the one who was to come after him, they would not have rejected Jesus as a blasphemer. They would have recognized in Jesus the bringer of salvation predicted by Moses. But precisely this faith in Moses is what they lacked. They were unable to view “the law given through Moses” in its reference to the “grace and truth” that came “through Jesus Christ” (1:17). And therefore the issue between Jesus and them is irresolvable. For “if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” If they did not follow the course that Moses had pointed out to them for their faith, how could they ever come out in the vicinity of Jesus?

The distinction between “his writings” and “my words” seems at first to contain a conclusio a maiori ad minus (“if not his writings, how much less my words”).⁶³ But the intent is not to indicate a difference in importance or intelligibility between (Moses’) writings and (Jesus’) words but rather the unchangeable correspondence between the two. As long as the Jews did not understand that the Scriptures of Moses taught the same faith that Jesus demanded from them, he would always remain for them a stranger.

As in vs. 44 so here, the sentence, and now the chapter, ends with a rhetorical question: “how will you believe …?” The question could hardly be posed in a more pointed fashion. For by again involving Moses in the dispute and by designating him as the great accuser of the unbelief of the Jews, Jesus brought into the open the deepening background of conflict between himself and the Jews who rejected him. We are dealing not just with a divergence of roads within one and the same Israelite faith, but with the now-visible break in the essence of this faith itself.

6:1-25

The Feeding of the Five Thousand, Jesus Walks on the Sea

As stated earlier, chs. 5 and 6 constitute the thematic beginning of the great middle section of the Gospel, which ends with ch. 10. In broad outline ch. 6 has the same construction as ch. 5: a miracle performed by Jesus (here a double miracle, vss. 1-25) is the point of departure for a lengthy discourse or didactic dialogue in continuing confrontation with the hearers—first with “the people,” then also with the Jews—with regard to Jesus’ identity and the significance of his coming (vss. 26-58).

In vss. 1-25, two questions deserve priority: First, how is this section connected with what precedes? Second, how should we evaluate the relationship between the narrative of the two miracles and the corresponding material in the Synoptics? For the first question, see the introduction to 5:1–6:71 above. In my opinion, the narrative in ch. 5 constitutes an intermezzo in Jesus’ stay—mentioned in 4:1ff., 44 and further described in 6:1—in Galilee. Hence, although any geographic link with ch. 5 is lacking, in many respects ch. 5 is basic to the theme that dominates ch. 6 (“bread from heaven”), as regards both the work Jesus had come to accomplish (cf. 6:38ff.) and the life-giving and division-causing effect of that work (cf. 6:47ff., 53ff., 66ff.). With regard to Galilee, this discourse leads to a climax and conclusion with the departure of some disciples and Peter’s confession (6:66ff.).

As for the second question, quite apart from the story of the feeding of the five thousand itself one can point to the combination of that story with that of Jesus’ walking on the sea, which occurs in both John 6 and Mt. 14:13-32; Mk. 6:32-51 (Luke lacks the latter story). Moreover, the contexts of the story in John and Mark (with Matthew) exhibit a variety of analogous components: the request for a sign (Jn. 6:25-34; cf. Mk. 8:11-13), Peter’s confession (Jn. 6:60-69; cf. Mk. 8:27-30), and the prediction of suffering (Jn. 6:70, 71; cf. Mk. 8:31-33). To this one may perhaps add Jesus’ warning against the leaven of the Pharisees in Mk. 8:14ff. in contrast with the true bread that Jesus offers (Jn. 6:35-39), and that as a possible allusion to the time of Passover (cf. Jn. 6:4). All these motifs and themes, though they diverge somewhat and are expressed in different ways, somehow belong together in the tradition, whether historically or thematically or both. At the same time the differences are such that it must be deemed almost impossible to trace the story of John 6 to (one of) the Synoptic Gospels. That Matthew and Mark record two feedings and that the themes of a request for a sign, the leaven of the Pharisees, and Peter’s confession do not come up until after the second show that there can be no question of direct dependence, unless one assumes a most fragmentary and arbitrary use by John of his fellow Evangelists.

The same is true of the reproduction of the two main events—the multiplication of loaves and Jesus’ walking on the sea. Brown’s detailed comparison of the story of the loaves in John and Luke and the two stories in Matthew and Mark shows the following: First, though there are several far-reaching similarities between John and the (five!) stories in the Synoptics, none of the Synoptic versions can be identified as John’s model or starting point. Second, John has a number of details that can be found in none of the Synoptics—for example, the crossing of the sea (vs. 1), the Passover season (vs. 6), the identification of Philip and Andrew (vss. 7, 8), the lad with five barley loaves (vs. 9), and Jesus’ command to gather the fragments so that nothing would be wasted (vs. 12). Third, John lacks all sorts of details present in the Synoptic versions, which would be hard to explain if he used (one of) these stories. Brown’s conclusion seems justified: “There is one logical explanation for all these features, omissions, additions, and parallels, namely, that the Evangelist did not copy from the Synoptics but had an independent tradition of the multiplication that was like, but not the same as, the Synoptic traditions.”⁶⁴

The conclusion from both these questions leads us to adhere to the traditional sequence of chs. 5 and 6 and to evaluate the text of the narrated material on its own merits and not as dependent on the Synoptic stories.

1-4 The opening of the story takes us to the region—characteristic of the Synoptic Gospels—around “the Sea of Galilee,” which is “the Sea of Tiberias.”⁶⁵ It is not stated precisely from where to where the crossing took place but the destination was clearly the eastern shore (cf. vs. 16). The “multitude” (vs. 2) that constantly⁶⁶ followed Jesus apparently traveled on foot along the northeastern side of the lake. The signs that caused them to do so are not the specific miracles reported earlier; this assumes, rather, as in 2:23, that the reader knew of Jesus’ miraculous power in general. That the crowd’s aim was to see miracles is not presented as a positive assessment of their interest (cf. 2:24; 4:45, 48). Vss. 1 and 2 are strongly reminiscent of Mt. 15:29, 31, but are intended to furnish only a general depiction of the setting, of which “the hills” in vs. 3 also speak (cf. Mt. 5:1; Mk. 3:13). The mention of the approaching Passover in vs. 4 is striking. This is apparently not just a time indication but is also intended to evoke the content of the story that follows (see below). This is the second Passover reported in John (cf. 2:13, 23). For the expression “the feast of the Jews,” see the comments on 2:13.

5-9 Jesus “lifting up his eyes” and “seeing a large crowd coming toward him” (vs. 5) is reminiscent of 4:35. As an introduction to Jesus’ question to Philip it evokes (as in 4:35) the image of the messianic age, in which (as the harvester: cf. again 4:35; as the shepherd: cf. Mk. 6:34; as the king: cf. Jn. 6:15) Jesus sees the people come to him with all their needs and hopes—a situation in which, by way of a pertinent question, he also immediately involves his disciples (“From where shall we …?”). But the question does seem totally inspired by perplexity or even meant as a rhetorical question rather than intended seriously to inquire from Philip where the bread could possibly come from to feed that many people. But, as the Evangelist immediately adds, the question served to test Philip, to see whether, as a follower and confessor of the Messiah, he understood the challenge inherent in this situation and how he would react to it. For—says the Evangelist—“Jesus himself knew what he would do.”

By thus having Jesus ask the first question (unlike the Synoptics; cf. Mk. 6:35ff.) and therefore immediately giving him the initiative, the Evangelist again focuses the entire narrative on Jesus and from the beginning gives to this question to his disciple a certain slant that, initially at least, the disciple does not understand. As the shift in the story will show with unmistakable clarity (cf. vss. 26ff.), Jesus is not simply or primarily interested in providing for a momentary need for food (cf. Mk. 6:35ff.) but no less to give to his disciples an answer to the question “from where?” of the “bread for so many” in which they were soon to be involved as his servants. He himself, as the one in whose hand “the Father has given all things” (3:35; cf. 5:20ff.), knew what he would do, but would they also know the “whence”?

For the time being Philip offers his answer, as people have answered over and over, even those who ought to have known better and were to know better (cf. 4:11b, 33). He clings to the literal sense of Jesus’ words: “Where are we to buy?” and tells Jesus in round figures that the whole idea is unthinkable. Even if they had at their disposal an enormous amount of money like two hundred denarii (i.e., two hundred times the amount a day laborer could earn in a day; cf. Mt. 20:2),⁶⁷ even this would not be enough to furnish a mouthful of food to every person in this crowd. Nor is Philip alone in his calculations. He gets support from Andrew (with whom he is also linked in 12:21f.; 1:44),⁶⁸ who, without bothering himself about imagined amounts of money, limits himself to the actual supply of bread on hand: five loaves and two (dried) fish. But what could one do with that, given so many mouths?

Although some of the details of the story correspond completely with those of the Synoptics—there, too, we read of five loaves and three fishes!—John’s version is conspicuously his own. Apart from the roles he assigns to Philip and Andrew, there are in Andrew’s mention of a boy⁶⁹ and of barley loaves two special features that occur also in the story of the miraculous feeding in 2 Kg. 4:42ff. There “the boy”⁷⁰ is Elisha’s servant. In John the boy is also undoubtedly a helper or servant (of the disciples); Andrew would of course not make an inventory of what food the whole crowd had but of what they themselves had on hand (cf. Mk. 6:38). The servant’s question in 2 Kg. 4:43 (“How am I to set this before a hundred men?”) strongly resembles Andrew’s question in John: “But what are they among so many?” Although this last point of correspondence is natural and cannot by itself be considered striking, the combination of these three links—the boy, the barley, and the question—can hardly be regarded as accidental.⁷¹ Elsewhere in the Gospel we encounter expressions that bear a striking resemblance to certain features or statements in Old Testament miracle stories; cf. Jn. 4:50 with 1 Kg. 17:23; Jn. 9:7 with 2 Kg. 5:10; Jn. 2:6 with Gn. 4:55 (and possibly Jn. 1:29 with Gn. 22:8). Some scholars go even further and also see a clear resemblance in character between Jesus’ miracles and those of Elijah (and Elisha) and Moses.⁷² It is said that in Jesus’ miracles those of the great figures of the Old Testament return, a powerful proof for his messiahship.⁷³

Still, the direct allusions, insofar as one can speak of them, are few, and where they are most clear—as in this chapter—they are marginal. The Johannine miracle stories themselves, even where one might speak of a certain similarity in character with those of Elijah and Elisha, are, in both construction and redaction, absolutely independent over against those in 1 and 2 Kings, and the corresponding features we have noted are no more than hints for the perceptive reader. Of course this does not remove the fact that these hints are of fundamental importance, because therein emerges the salvation-historical continuity between God’s work of redemption in the past and that which transpires in the coming and ministry of the Messiah—a continuity that underlies the entire Fourth Gospel. That is not to say that the christology of the Fourth Gospel bears a character derived from the Mosaic “prophet” or even from the figures of Elijah and Elisha. Elijah and Elisha are not mentioned in this connection, and one would therefore have to subsume their significance under that of Moses. And admittedly, as we learned already from 5:39ff., 45ff., Moses is cited repeatedly in the Fourth Gospel as the great “witness” to Jesus as the Christ in virtue of the “Scriptures” he represents, but not, as himself a prophet and miracle-worker, as a “model” for Jesus’ messiahship. It is rather the case that he serves as the example that shows how the messianic character of Jesus’ coming and work totally transcends the Old Testament framework of salvation. This is true even of the miracles performed by Moses, as will become apparent in what follows in this chapter when the bread from heaven given through Moses, in its insufficiency for life, is contrasted with the bread that Jesus, as the Son of man, gives and is (cf. vss. 27ff., 32ff., 58).

10-13 After the two disciples have thus said their piece, Jesus carries out his intent (vs. 6; vss. 10ff.). At his command all must sit down. The abundant grass (in this season, cf. vs. 4) made this opportune (Mk. 6:39). Immediately, as in Luke (but unlike Matthew and Mark), the number of about five thousand men is mentioned. As a result, from the very beginning the emphasis comes to lie on the immense crowd for which Jesus prepares the meal. As host, he gives thanks and distributes the bread and the fish, then the miracle is realized in the abundance he sets before these thousands of people (cf. 10:10). The fact that this is the great vantage point from which the meal has to be viewed is clear from vss. 12 and 13. The disciples, undoubtedly already involved in the distribution (as the Synoptics explicitly report), are told to gather up not only the remnants but the surplus, the overflow⁷⁴ of the meal. It then turns out that of the five barley loaves twelve baskets can be filled with the fragments that those who had eaten and were satisfied had to spare, for they were not allowed to “waste” any part of this abundance. For this practice scholars refer to the Jewish custom of gathering the fragments after a meal. This is correct and—within the context of the narrative—certainly in the sense that of the gift for which the father in the home thanks God nothing should be lost. How much less, then, of these gifts! Not as sacred miracle bread but as evidence of the power and authority with which the Father had clothed his Son. Of this reality especially the disciples, as fellow participants in the work of the Lord (cf. also 4:35ff.), and in spite of their initial inability to follow him in it, had to be witnesses, individually and collectively as the twelve. For only as they trust the fullness of God’s gift in the sending of his Son could they be his disciples and continue his work in the world.

The intent of this picture of Jesus—one that is presented with so much emphasis in all four Gospels—was to make visible the great future inaugurated in Jesus’ coming and work as that had been repeatedly prefigured in prophecy under the image of the host presiding over and providing an abundant meal and that had a prominent place in the parables and predictions of Jesus himself (e.g., Is. 25:6ff.; 49:9ff.; Mt. 22:1-14; Lk. 22:16, 29, 30). In this regard there is a clear resemblance between this meal and the wedding in Cana: here an abundance of bread, there an abundance of wine. But while in that revelational miracle in ch. 2 everything is still focused on the (first) disclosure of Jesus’ glory and while the meal itself and the guests receive no special attention there and the disciples only fulfill the role of spectators, here the dominant motif is the great multitude for which Jesus is the host and for which his disciples, already serving as the executors of his work, are directly involved. In this respect the presentation of the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand in the Fourth Gospel forms a clear parallel to that in the Synoptics.

Still, it cannot be denied that in the dialogue and teaching in the synagogue that follow the significance of the miracle of the loaves is given a typically Johannine twist in that it is not (as in the Synoptics) the coming of the kingdom that constitutes the central theme but the identification of the miracle with Jesus himself in which everything culminates. This bread discourse in the synagogue is, in fact, the great example of this identification, for here in constantly new forms and phrases Jesus calls himself “the bread that has come down from heaven” and even refers to his own “flesh” as the bread that he will give for the life of the world (cf. vss. 32ff., 48ff., 51ff.; see, however, the comments already on 2:10b; 4:10).

Many (both earlier and more recent) exegetes are even of the opinion that the story of the bread miracle in John was redacted under the influence of the bread discourse so that the point of the multiplication comes to lie in its reference to the Last Supper. In the exegesis below we shall consider in greater detail the sacramental interpretation of the bread discourse. Here the question is whether eucharistic tendencies are already shaping the account of the miracle of the loaves itself. According to some commentators, this is indeed the case. Brown, for example, writes at length about the “eucharistic features” that mark the miracle story itself, finding them in the first place in that which the Synoptic and the Johannine accounts of the multiplication have in common with the reports of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, where Jesus also takes the bread, pronounces the blessing or thanksgiving, and breaks and distributes the bread.⁷⁵ Scholars also appeal in this regard to the eucharistic prayer in the Didache, in which God is petitioned that “as this fragmented bread was scattered on the mountains [like grain] but was gathered up [synagein] … so let the church be gathered up from the four corners of the earth into your kingdom.”⁷⁶

But these arguments are not very persuasive. All that the reports of the institution of the Lord’s Supper and of the multiplication of loaves have in common is what, according to Jewish custom, every father or host did at the beginning of a meal. This qualifies both the feeding miracle and Jesus’ last meeting with his disciples as meals, and it is not at all obvious why the (naturally) close agreement in the description of Jesus’ action as host at both occasions should impart “eucharistic features” to the miracle of the multiplication. The great theme of the miracle story is the eschatological abundance that Jesus supplies and the messianic authority given him by the Father. It is true that in the course of the subsequent discourse Jesus will increasingly relate the significance of the bread to himself and (in 6:51ff.) arrive at the pronouncement that the bread he will give “for the life of the world” is his “flesh.” But this symbolic interpretation in the bread discourse does not allow us to project it back into the redaction of the miracle story, thus making the entire account into an allegorical presentation of the Last Supper. It is even disputed whether in the bread discourse itself Jesus, in speaking of eating the bread descended from heaven (explicated as his flesh), refers to the eating of the communion bread and not to the believing appropriation of his self-offering in death.⁷⁷ And there is no more sign of or allusion to such sacramental eating in the redaction of the bread miracle in John than in the Synoptics. The remarkable fact is that John, though his interpretation of the bread given and presented by Jesus goes beyond that of the Synoptics and is very much his own, leaves the general eschatological character of the traditional story intact.

Nor, in my opinion, can the appeal to Didache 9:4 detract from this. In the Didache the image of the harvest gathered from all the mountains dominates everything; in John 6 the dominant image is that of the plentiful meal. Therefore, in John the “gathered” bread is not an image of the church gathered from the four corners of the earth, as in the prayer in the Didache, but of the abundant gift of God in Christ of which the church, in this case the disciples called by Jesus, is the witness and of which they may not let anything “perish.” To project the former into the latter is a contamination of heterogeneous matters.

14, 15 The first reaction of “the people” shows that they, too, understand this miracle of the loaves in an “eschatological” sense, namely as the evidence of the expected coming into the world of “the prophet” (see the comments on 1:19; cf. 7:40). Many interpreters take “the prophet” to be the prophet promised by Moses in Dt. 18:15: “a prophet like me.” Moses was known as the great miracle worker (e.g., Dt. 34:10, 11), as was Elijah, and Jesus’ miracles evoked the thought of the coming of the Mosaic prophet (as of Elijah; cf. Mk. 6:14ff. par.; 8:27ff. par.). What is remarkable is that in the present passage the coming of “the” prophet is apparently associated with the royal function (cf. vs. 15) generally attributed to the Messiah as the one who would restore the Davidic kingship, but who, in the pertinent Jewish literature, did not act as miracle worker (see, however, the comments on 7:31).⁷⁸ Some interpreters therefore believe that the reference here cannot be to the prophet of Deuteronomy 18 because the latter is not said to be a king; others think, however, that in Jewish (and Samaritan) future expectation the Mosaic “prophet” does exhibit royal features and that in vs. 15, therefore, the reference is not to the Messiah.⁷⁹ It is questionable, however, whether in Jewish future expectation, which is not always transparent to us, one can make such sharp distinctions among the functions of the figures expected in the messianic age. In this connection John does clearly make a distinction between “the prophet” and “the Messiah” (1:21; 7:40, 41); from the Messiah, however, miracles were also expected (see comments on 7:31; cf. also Mt. 24:24; Mk. 13:22) and there are clear associations throughout the New Testament between messiahship and prophecy.⁸⁰ It is clear that John the Evangelist does not aim to characterize or define Jesus’ messiahship from the perspective of specific Jewish expectations. However much scholars think they can illumine the connection between prophet and king in vss. 14 and 15 from Jewish expectations, it is presumably well established, first, that, in connection with the kingship of Jesus as the Christ, the Evangelist takes his starting point in the promised messianic (Davidic) king (cf. 1:49; 12:13ff.; 20:31), and, second, that on the basis of Jesus’ self-revelation the Evangelist redefines this kingship in a way that transcends all existing expectations (cf. 1:50, 51; 20:31: Son of man and Son of God; see also the comments on vs. 27). This is also evident from how, in the present context, Jesus withdraws from what he perceives to be the intent of the multitude, namely “to make him king.”

The situation here is not depicted very clearly. Are “the hills” of vs. 15 identical with those in vs. 3? Or is the idea that Jesus merely withdrew to one of the surrounding hills? And what is meant by “again”? That this was his practice (cf. Mk. 6:46)? But the intent is clear. Jesus does not give the multitude a chance to put their conceptions concerning him into effect. He rejects a priori any notion of kingship as they conceived it. And the reason is not that he wanted no part of the messianic kingship for himself (cf. 1:49; 12:13ff.) or that he objected to the application to himself of the prophecy of a prophet like Moses (cf. 1:45; 4:25, 26). But he wanted no part of kingship in the way the people understood it, something he would later describe as a “kingship of this world” (18:36). What the multitude envisioned was that they would make him king and that he would exercise a worldly kingship over them. Throughout this discussion of Jesus’ true identity, even with those who were disposed on the basis of his messianic self-disclosure to accept him as the (or a) divinely sent prophet or messiah, one must undoubtedly also read the Fourth Gospel against the background of the continuing conflict over Jesus’ messiahship between church and synagogue.

16-19 In his description of the miracle of “Jesus walking on the sea” (cf. Mt. 14:22; Mk. 6:45), a miracle that follows at the heels of that of the loaves, the Evangelist clearly follows his own course. In his version the disciples take the initiative (cf. Mk. 6:45). When evening falls and the time has come to return, they go down to the sea (vs. 16) and embark to go to Capernaum (vs. 17). We are not told why they go without Jesus. Jesus had earlier withdrawn from them to go to “the hills” (vs. 15) and is therefore for a time the great Absent One in the story. For now the disciples are on their own. The statement that after nightfall⁸¹ Jesus had still not come to them does not, therefore, refer to their expectation or to an arrangement between him and them but, anticipating the sequel, calls attention to the fact that now also the darkness separated them from him and he therefore had to come to them in the dark. Moreover⁸² (vs. 18), in the meantime, as a result of a fierce wind, the sea had become very agitated. Still, the emphasis does not come to lie so much on the disciples’ predicament but on the inconceivability of Jesus’ coming to them—in the darkness and over the high waves. To this vs. 19 adds the new element of distance: “the twenty-five or thirty stadia,” that is, some three or four miles, about half of the width of the sea at its widest point. Then when the disciples had come thus far and found themselves in the midst of the sea, they saw coming toward them the figure of Jesus “walking” on the tumultuous sea. “Walking” (the current and literal translation of the Greek word)⁸³ suggests the effortlessness of Jesus going over the sea. They “saw” Jesus: a “seeing” reminiscent of that of 1:14.⁸⁴ That the sight frightened them is consistent with the nature of this “seeing.” It is the fear that fills a person confronted with the revelation of God or the divine (cf. Lk. 1:12; 2:19) or, in general, with the supernatural (cf. Mt. 14:26), a fear that apparently also prevented the disciples from immediately recognizing Jesus in the approaching figure. For they had never learned to know him in that way and thus, in that place and horrendous situation, had not expected him at all.

20 The austere, nondramatic way in which everything is told climaxes in the simple saying of Jesus: “It is I; do not be afraid.” In its literal sense this is only a self-identification intended to soothe the disciples’ fear (cf. Mk. 6:50). But by saying this Jesus also describes his coming and appearance as a divine epiphany;⁸⁵ and this occurs in a context—and that is where the emphasis lies in this self-revelation—that should convince them that, in virtue of the glory given him by God, no darkness was too deep, waves too high, or sea too wide for him to find them and be with them in the midst of that tumult.

21 The conclusion in vs. 21 is as succinct in form as the whole story itself. “They wanted to take him into the boat” has an indefinite air but presumably means that the disciples expressed the wish—urged him—that he should come aboard with them, as the direct and natural consequence of their recognition of Jesus and the change in their outlook. That he complied, though it is not expressed, is assumed. The concluding statement, “and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going,” apparently only means that once Jesus was with them there were no further problems and they soon reached the other side of the lake. There is no explicit mention here, as in the other Gospels, of “a stilling of the storm.” Some commentators see here instead a “miraculous landing.”⁸⁶ But this seems extremely far-fetched. What is undoubtedly meant is that as a result of Jesus’ presence, they soon reached their destination. That this was due not to the fact that the sea had become level but to a new miracle seems, in the context of the entire story and of the knowledge of the tradition constantly assumed among the readers, an entirely unmotivated hypothesis (cf. also Ps. 107:29, 30).

One can, finally, inquire about the specific significance of this miracle in the whole context of ch. 6.⁸⁷ The manner in which the Evangelist edited the story shows that he did not incorporate this “sequel” to the miracle of the loaves in his Gospel on purely traditional grounds. This is also evident from the fact that the multitude groped in vain for the time and manner in which he had come to Capernaum (vs. 25). We may say perhaps that in the statement “It is I”—in which the second miracle culminates—Jesus reveals himself to his disciples as wholly other than the multitude pictured him and wanted him to be. He withdrew from the crowd in order to reveal himself to the disciples. But this did not occur until there had also been a substantial change in the role of the disciples. In the miracle of the loaves they share in his glory. Then he lets them go away in a boat alone—here, in John, by withdrawing himself from them, in the Synoptics, by expressly making them go (Mt. 14:22; Mk. 6:45). Do they perhaps need to be safeguarded against an all-too-human, “worldly” conception of his kingship and their own role in it? In any case, once they have arrived on the sea they are confronted by another reality, one in which all glory departs from them; darkness and waves tower over them while the safe shore of the other side is still at a great distance. In that situation Jesus reveals himself to them in the absoluteness of his messianic power and authority. It is in this way that he wants to be known as the one sent by the Father over against all that human beings want to make of him and use him for. And it is faith in that identity to which he wants to lead his disciples, even when they might have to follow him not in the light of his glory but along other roads and under the threat of other powers.

22-25 The next segment of the story occurs on the following day. The Evangelist positions this time indication, which he often uses, at the head of this unit, although what follows in vss. 22ff. still relates to the previous day, and he does not get to the intended continuation of the events on the next day until vss. 24b and 25. The resulting incongruency in the sentence structure cannot be resolved in translation. However, the intent is not unclear.⁸⁸ The people who, after the miracle, had remained on the other side noticed that the disciples had embarked without Jesus, although there was no other boat available to him (vs. 22). In the meantime (vs. 23) other boats had arrived from Tiberias, close to where the miracle had occurred. When the people (vs. 24) again ascertained for themselves that neither Jesus nor his disciples were still present, they set out for Capernaum in search of Jesus. And when they found him there a day later, they came to him with the question, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” (vs. 25). This question is the starting point for Jesus’ great discourse on the true bread from heaven.

6:26-59

Bread from Heaven, the Synagogue at Capernaum

This lengthy discourse—which can also be called a didactic dialogue—in the synagogue at Capernaum (vs. 59) is one of the most controversial topics in the study of the Fourth Gospel, not only in commentaries but also in a multitude of monographs.⁸⁹ The questions most at issue are the “sacramental” character of the discourse (see above on the bread miracle), the unity of vss. 26-58 in the text transmitted, and, therewith, the composition and division of the material. One commentator has been said of chapter 6 that it “has such a clear internal unity and self-consistency, it is so well balanced and articulated, that it ranks as one of the finest products of John’s pen,”⁹⁰ but others are convinced of the opposite. Here again⁹¹ it is especially Bultmann who believes that almost everything is lacking to this unity. He himself attempts to reorder a “disordered” text and considers vss. 51b-58 so contradictory of what precedes that he regards these verses as an addition by a later “churchly” redactor.⁹²

However, as has been remarked, such an approach to the text, which was in vogue with some commentators for a long time and carried to its limit in Bultmann’s commentary, is finding less and less acceptance. Not only are the results of these reconstructions usually no less problematic than the difficulties they are intended to resolve,⁹³ but the insight is growing that the author of this Gospel must have moved along very different conceptual lines of thought than those that characterize a modern, systematically constructed discourse.

More plausible, therefore, are more recent attempts to explain the construction of the “teaching” in the synagogue at Capernaum in the light of Jewish liturgical or homiletical models said to be governed by a similar structure. Some interpreters, proceeding on the basis of vss. 4 and 59, have attempted to posit a direct link between Jesus’ discourse and the Passover⁹⁴ or selected Passover.⁹⁵ The attempt is made to show that during Passover, when the history of the exodus is central, the eating of manna in the wilderness was given special attention. Accordingly, the miracle of the loaves is said to have been very closely tied in with the eating of the manna. In that connection the construction of Jesus’ discourse in the synagogue is said to have been reminiscent, in more than one respect, of the Passover haggadah—for example, in the questions that the multitude directs to Jesus (vss. 28, 30f., 41f., 52), which are said to correspond with the sort of questions that were raised with respect to the meaning of the meal during the Passover celebration by four children.⁹⁶

This view has not found much acceptance, however. For however attractive it may seem, at first blush, to forge a connection between, on the one hand, Passover (6:4) as the celebration of the great salvation event of the exodus from Egypt and the associated miracle of manna and, on the other, the miracle of the loaves as a portrayal of the messianic time of salvation, it is quite another matter whether these connections can be persuasively shown to exist in the miracle story itself and in the subsequent discourse in the synagogue. That which is supposed to serve as proof is too general and forced—like the questions asked by the four children, which are supposed to be “parallels”—to serve as the interpretive key to the construction of John 6.

More deserving of credit in this respect is the view—initiated by P. Borgen⁹⁷ and adopted by others⁹⁸—that ch. 6 contains evidence of a certain homiletic “model” or “pattern” of Scripture exposition that one also encounters in the writings of Philo and in later rabbinic literature. These scholars have in mind specifically a form of midrash in which, from a given statement in Scripture (usually from the Pentateuch), individual words are taken as starting point for an extensive paraphrase ending in a summary conclusion. In the course of such a teaching a fitting saying from another part of Scripture is then usually taken to support the argumentation. This pattern is said to be present in the discourse here, and vs. 31 is taken to be the central text, later supported by the quotation from Isaiah in vs. 45. The quotation in vs. 31, the words “bread” and “from heaven” in particular, is said to be explained in vss. 32-48, while the “eating” of the bread comes up first in vss. 49-51 and again after the question in vs. 52, thus demonstrating the original unity of vss. 52-58 with what comes before.

The general importance of these studies seems to lie in the fact that, for the evaluation of the structure and construction of (not always transparent) units like the bread discourse in John 6, they uncover broader criteria than those that have usually been applied by literary criticism with a strictly “Western” orientation. And this is all the more true when the intent of scholars is not strictly to evaluate the construction of the text by a fixed pattern of midrash, but to make visible, in a more general sense, contemporary backgrounds of homiletical or expository forms.⁹⁹ In particular, this approach to the discourse here has the merit that, for the mode of argumentation followed there, it can point to clear features of correspondence in contemporary Jewish literature¹⁰⁰ and that it can advance forceful arguments for the unity of the discourse, in particular that vss. 51c-58 belong integrally to what comes before.

Another matter, however, is whether one can go so far as to qualify vss. 31-58 as a running paraphrase—constructed in the manner of a midrash—of the citation in vs. 31. It has been correctly remarked by others that one cannot really consider John 6 a coherent discourse or didactic address, since it is repeatedly interrupted by questions and objections from the hearers. In the light of vs. 59 it should rather be referred to as a didactic dialogue.¹⁰¹ This distinction not only has formal value but also and especially material significance because the construction of the whole is thus seen to be clearly shaped not only by the citation in vs. 31 but no less by the repeated interjections of Jesus’ hearers. The result is that one can certainly not say (with Borgen) that the discourse is composed of two parts, of which the first (vss. 32-48) paraphrases “bread from heaven” and “give” and the second (vss. 49-58) “eat.” Borgen thus isolates vss. 26-30 from the discourse proper, whereas they are organically bound up with it (note the links between vss. 30 and 31 and vss. 27 and 28). But it is of no less importance that in vss. 31ff. Jesus, because he responds each time to questions and objections from his hearers, deviates, as it were, from “the text” and pursues a line of thought that one can hardly describe as a paraphrase of the text. This happens specifically in vss. 36ff., where, before picking up in vs. 47 the thread of vs. 35, he first reacts at great length to the unbelief of his hearers, and “bread from heaven” is no longer the dominant motif in this section (cf. vss. 37ff., 44ff.). This is not to say that these verses break up the unity of the discourse, for the connection with what precedes is still clearly evident (indirectly, e.g., in “come down from heaven” in vs. 38; very directly in vss. 41ff.). But this does, to my mind, constitute a clear hindrance to bringing the entire discourse (beginning in vs. 26) about the bread from heaven that Jesus gives and is, under the heading of a homily or midrash on the citation in vs. 31. Therefore, the division of the whole cannot be derived from the sequence of the terms in the citation in vs. 31 but needs to be seen as also determined by the course of the dialogue between Jesus and his hearers. With others,¹⁰² therefore, I opt for a division in which vss. 26ff. are seen as integrated into the whole of the dialogue and vss. 36-46, though taken as an integral part of the text, nevertheless occupy a place of their own as an intermezzo between vss. 26-35 and vss. 48-58. Briefly, then, the passage can be outlined as follows:

a. Verses 26-35: “I am the bread of life.” On the basis of the question in vs. 25, Jesus begins to speak of the food that does not perish. In the resulting dialogue, the appeal to Moses and to the bread from heaven that Moses gave the people to eat acquires an important thematic significance. This leads to Jesus’ pronouncement—a provisional high point in the discourse: “I am the bread of life.”

b. Verses 36-47: God’s saving will is realized in people coming to Jesus. Over against the unbelief of those who desire the heavenly bread but do not believe in Jesus himself as the one sent from heaven, Jesus—before again picking up in vs. 47 the theme of vs. 35—maintains that his mission is the fulfillment of God’s saving will with regard to those whom the Father has given him. For this he specifically appeals to the words “And they will all be taught by God” (Isaiah 54).

c. Verses 48-58: “The bread that I will give is my flesh.” Vs. 48 again takes up the pronouncement of vs. 35a and explicates why and in what respect Jesus, in distinction from the bread in the wilderness, is the bread of life. He is because he gives his flesh for the life of the world. Despite the paradoxical and offensive character of this utterance (vs. 52), his flesh is truly food and his blood truly drink, and only they who eat his flesh and drink his blood have eternal life. Vs. 58 summarizes and concludes.

6:26-35

“I Am the Bread of Life”

26 The emphatic pronouncement in vs. 26, which functions as a new beginning, above all echoes what happened the day before and the reaction of the people. Jesus’ statement is not a real answer to their question in vs. 25. With that question they touched on the secret of Jesus’ identity—the miraculous way he had come across the lake!—but without realizing it. Still their question evinces more than mere curiosity. Implied in it is puzzlement over his conduct: Why had he withdrawn himself from them? Why had he left them in a state of uncertainty so that they had to go out in search of him?

Jesus’ answer is striking in its utter negativity.¹⁰³ It is also striking that he charges the people that they do not seek him because they had seen the signs, even though it was seeing the sign that led them to say, “This is indeed the prophet” (vs. 14). This fact, as also their request for a sign in vs. 30, has occasioned the question whether the situation of the miracle story and that of the subsequent dialogue are really in sync and whether the Evangelist has not brought together here materials that do not belong together (see the Introduction above). But vs. 26 clearly echoes the preceding, not only in the second part but also in the word “signs.” The point of the pronouncement consists in the charged way Jesus uses the expression “seeing signs,” as distinct from its meaning in vs. 14 (cf. vs. 2; 2:23). In John the word translated “sign”¹⁰⁴ often means no more than “miracle.” Still, the word in Greek also (and as a rule) has the meaning of our word “sign.” In the context of the miracle stories it then means something like: miracle as symbol, miracle with a meaning inherent in and depicted by the miracle. Accordingly, some scholars translate vs. 26 “… not because you have understood the signs.…” Still it is questionable whether in the word “sign” the symbolic significance of the bread is referred to.¹⁰⁵ True, later in the discourse Jesus will explain the meaning of the miracle, but what is at stake here is not primarily the (noetic) act of understanding a symbolic miracle but the (visual) act of seeing the miraculous event as the authenticating sign of another heavenly reality, a sign designed to awaken in the people a corresponding “faith” (cf. vss. 29, 30, 36). However, all that they “saw” (vs. 14) and that aroused their attention and enthusiasm were the loaves that had stilled their hunger. For that reason their “seeking” of Jesus had been inspired by desire, not for the heavenly and permanent, but for the earthly and perishable. And insofar as they saw in Jesus, on the basis of the miracle he performed, “the prophet who was to come into the world” and were prepared to enthrone him as king (vss. 14 and 15), to that degree they gave proof that they had not “seen” the “sign.”

27 Over against this intense focus on the food that perishes (cf. Is. 55:2; as elsewhere on earthly riches, cf. Mt. 6:19ff.), Jesus now poses as an absolute contrast—and hence in the manner of a mašāl¹⁰⁶—labor for the bread that endures to eternal life. The parallel with what is said in ch. 4 about living water is striking (cf. 4:9, 13ff.; see also the comments below on 6:34). In what follows what Jesus means by the food will be identified ever more closely with his person and work (vss. 35, 48, 51, 55). Here it is primarily described as “the gift of the Son of man” (cf. vs. 53), an expression that also denotes the transcendent character of the gift (see the comments on 1:51; 5:27). Although he is still speaking in the third person, it is clear that Jesus is also referring to his own powers as the one sent by the Father (cf. vs. 29), and that especially to indicate the heavenly and imperishable character of the gift at his disposal: eternal life (cf. vs. 53). The clause “for on him has God the Father set his seal” speaks of the exclusive (“on him”) appointment and authorization of the Son of man as the bringer of salvation. The idea that this sealing refers to a specific event in Jesus’ life, specifically to his baptism (as some interpreters think), is not likely. This Gospel never mentions Jesus’ baptism. The reference is rather to the divine authorization of the Son of man as such. It is for that reason that one should zealously labor for the food that he gives and not labor merely for earthly bread (see also the comments on vs. 53).

28, 29 The people, however, do not respond to this clear reference to the Son of man, perhaps because they were not familiar with this figure (cf. 9:35, 36; 12:34). But they do understand that Jesus is urging them to seek “something higher” than what has up to this point motivated them to follow him. They therefore ask him what they must do (picking up the cue from Jesus’ words) “to be doing the works of God.”¹⁰⁷

Jesus’ answer (vs. 29) tersely expresses the issue at stake here as in all the conversations and encounters of the Fourth Gospel: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” The idea is not to elucidate the concepts “works” and “faith” in their mutual relations, as in Paul. All that is at stake here—which also governed the preceding—is that Jesus, including by means of the preceding miracle, pursues but one goal with the people: to open their eyes to the fact that in his coming and work God is in the process of addressing himself to them with his redeeming action, of introducing his kingdom, and of fulfilling his promise. In that connection the continual reference to the Son of man serves, over against all earthly and temporal patterns of expectation, to maintain the divine character and content of his messianic mission. For it is the person of the sent one and the way to which God will hold him that imparts to the food he gives its imperishable character (cf. vss. 51ff.). And the appropriate attitude on the part of those for whom this is intended is openness for what God gives and does, not works as a human achievement. That this “believing in him” is nevertheless called “the work of God”¹⁰⁸ has its roots in the pronouncement in vs. 27. All the labor and effort the people are investing to remain near Jesus is vain and unprofitable—a dead work—as long as they follow him on the basis of human expectations and not on the basis of faith.

30 The answer the people give may at first sight take us completely by surprise in view of what Jesus has done the previous day. But here, too, as in vs. 26, everything depends on who uses the words “sign” and “see”: Jesus or the people. What the people had “seen” as a “sign” was bread, and for that they were prepared to recognize Jesus as “the prophet” (vs. 14). But what he now claimed to be able to give them—eternal life—that they had not seen in him; and before believing that they would like to see a “sign” corresponding to the claim. Hence their answer, in which, in a somewhat parodying retort, they return the demand he made to them: “Then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you? What work do you yourself perform?”

31 Here an important shift occurs in the dialogue: from here on the discourse is dominated by the terminology of the manna miracle that occurred after the exodus from Egypt. The people bring this up to oppose Jesus’ claim that he had imperishable food at his disposal and hence had a superior claim to their faith. Over against this they appeal to the great wilderness experience of their fathers, expressed in the words of Scripture: “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” The citation cannot be found in this precise version in the Old Testament; we are dealing, rather, with a combination of a number of terms that are central to this whole context (cf. Ex. 16:4 and 15).¹⁰⁹ One can also refer to Ps. 78:23, 24, which also mentions the heavenly character of the bread that God, through Moses, gave to Israel in the wilderness (“he … opened the doors of heaven … and gave them grain from heaven. Humans ate the bread of angels”).

Jesus’ bread miracle was associated with the manna in the wilderness for more than one reason. It was the time of the Passover (vs. 4), the feast of the exodus. But of more importance is the connection that the people had already made (vs. 14) between Jesus and “the prophet” promised by Moses, along with the understanding in later Jewish writings of manna as a gift of the eschaton: the ancient miracle in the wilderness, it was said, would be repeated; thus the Messiah, the “second Redeemer,” would do what Moses, the “first Redeemer,” had done.¹¹⁰ We do not know how much this played a role in the dialogue described here because there is no explicit reference to it. But in the conflict over Jesus’ identity and the nature of his messiahship, both during his life and later in the conflict between church and synagogue, it was inevitable that his place in the history of redemption and comparison with the great figures of the past would come up again and again. Just as the Samaritan woman asked Jesus whether he was greater than “our father Jacob,” so now these Jews appeal to the heavenly bread that God, through Moses, gave the fathers to eat in the wilderness. In view of how he has spoken of the imperishable food “that endures to eternal life,” does he think he is greater than Moses and able to give more than the manna, the bread from heaven, that God gave through Moses?

32 Jesus responds at length to this statement, which is intended as an objection. He begins by denying with great emphasis—with the “truly, truly” with which he regularly introduces a pronouncement relating to his mission—that it was Moses who gave Israel (“you”) the bread from heaven. Then he says that it is his Father who now gives them “the true bread from heaven.” The second part of this argument makes clear the meaning of the first. The issue is not “bread,” not even “bread from heaven,” but the “true” bread from heaven. Nor is it Jesus’ intent to say that the bread Moses gave was illusory, bread only in appearance.¹¹¹ For by this bread God upheld his people in the wilderness and brought it to Canaan: a revelation-event! (cf. also the comments on 4:12). Nevertheless it was not the true bread,¹¹² in the sense in which, over against Moses, Jesus Christ is “the truth” (1:18) and in which the “true” worshipers worship the Father in Spirit and “in truth” (4:23). It was not the bread of the fulfillment, of the full revelation of God in his Son. Admittedly, this bread was also “word, deed, power, proceeding from the mouth of God” (Dt. 8:3; Mt. 4:4)¹¹³ and in that sense also bread from heaven, but it was not the Word incarnate in the Son.

33 For the true bread is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.¹¹⁴ At this point the words “from heaven” (describing the bread) flow together with the repeated description of the one sent by the Father as “he who descended from heaven” (the Son of man in 3:13), “he who comes from above” (3:31, etc.). He is the true bread of God because he gives life to the whole world (vs. 51; cf. 3:10). Thus he absolutely distinguishes himself from Moses (cf. the comments on 3:13), and thus the bread from heaven that Moses was able to give was not the true bread from God.

34 Evidently the Jews do not understand Jesus’ indirect (third-person) self-identification.¹¹⁵ But they have heard of bread—descended from heaven—that gives eternal life. And again their reaction recalls that of the Samaritan woman (cf. 4:15) when they ask him to give them this bread always.¹¹⁶ They say it respectfully (“Lord”), not sarcastically or provocatively. Over and over, in their encounter with Jesus, the people reach a point at which they approach Jesus in terms of their pattern of expectation, groping as it were, for his secret. But what lures them is the gift of present temporal life, the resolution of the bread issue (cf. 4:15b). It is the desire to have such bread at their disposal, not faith in Jesus as the giver of God’s imperishable, heavenly gift, that makes them speak thus (cf. vs. 36).

35 The discourse reaches a provisional conclusion in Jesus’ answer. He now states unambiguously that he is the life-giving bread¹¹⁷ and thus brings the dialogue to the point—always decisive in the great contest between faith and unbelief—of not only what he teaches and does but of who he is. To that end he makes one of the many “I am” pronouncements in which his “I” is the real predicate.¹¹⁸ Over and over the question is what really is the bread for which a person should “labor”—the bread that does not perish—and where it comes from. Now Jesus says that he is that bread. The intent is not primarily to describe the salvation granted by Jesus (as, e.g., in 14:6), namely that aside from other things he is and gives also the bread of life, but rather that anyone—as those in vs. 34 apparently were—in search of bread that does not perish should accept Jesus. He not only grants that bread but is that bread. For that reason it is decisive whether or not (vs. 36) a person “comes to him” (a recurrent expression: cf. vss. 37, 44, and 45) and “believes in him.” Then the hunger ends forever. The question of faith is decisive for the bread question and not—as the multitude thought—the reverse (Mt. 6:33).

Thirst is mentioned along with hunger here (cf. 4:14). Some interpreters think that here one should think, on the analogy of the manna, of the water from the rock, as constantly associated themes. But elsewhere, too, the stilling of hunger and the assuaging of thirst as primary needs and therefore as images of salvation and fulfillment, often go together (cf. Pr. 9:5; Is. 55:1ff.). At the same time it is already clear at this point how eating Jesus’ flesh as the true food and drinking his blood as the true drink have to be understood from the semantics of the bread discourse.

6:36-47

God’s Saving Will Is Realized in People Coming to Jesus

Before Jesus further explicates (in vss. 48ff.) the revelation that he is the bread of life (vs. 35), he first takes a stand against those who, though they have seen him act in the fullness of his messianic power and authority, still do not believe in him. Although the actual subject of this discourse is at no time lost sight of (cf. vs. 41), these verses do nevertheless form a kind of intermezzo or interruption in the flow of the argument.¹¹⁹ What needs to come first is an extensive further explanation of what is called “coming to God” and faith in him (vs. 35) as the only way in which God’s saving will with regard to the bread from heaven as the food that endures is realized.

Verse 36 reflects back on vs. 34, as vs. 37 does on vs. 35. The people are desirous of the bread that imparts (eternal) life, but they do not believe that Jesus is the one who gives, and is, this bread. He confronts them with this as something he has already said earlier: “you have seen me, yet do not believe.” It is most natural to link this saying (a “self-quotation”) with vs. 26, though there the reference is not to “seeing me” but to “seeing the signs” (in close association, however, with “seeking me”). In any case, “seeing me” materially reproduces the content of vs. 26 (cf. also vs. 40).¹²⁰ Here again the ambivalence—perhaps one may say the wordplay—in the word “see” asserts itself. They have seen him act in power but not in such a way as to arrive at true insight into and the full consequence of Jesus’ mission (as the Son, vs. 40) and at true faith in him.¹²¹

37 Over against that failure Jesus posits that nevertheless people who “come to him,” that is, believe in him (as described in vs. 35), will not be lacking. He bases that belief on “all that the Father gives me,” an expression that recurs in the Gospel and describes those who have “received” Jesus (cf. vs. 39; 10:29; 17:2ff.; 18:9) and denotes the close fellowship that exists between the Father and the Son in the fulfillment of God’s saving will. The Father does not place all things into the hands of the Son at once (3:35) but accompanies the Son in the execution of his mission from step to step, as it were, ever and again bringing to the Son those who are his.¹²² This is even more sharply formulated in vs. 44; there the background against which “all that the Father gives me” is to be understood is further clarified (see below). In the present context, however, the emphasis is on the positive: whatever Jesus’ hearers may think of him, there are others who will “come to him,” namely those whom God will bring to him as his own. And if they desire the heavenly gift from him (cf. vs. 39), he will by no means reject¹²³ the ones who thus come to him.

Verses 38-40 confirm this with a continual appeal to the “will” of him who sent Jesus. Again he describes himself as the one who descended from heaven, but now in the first person so that there can no longer be any uncertainty about what he meant when he used the third person. He now denies that, by thus speaking of himself, he is seeking the execution of his own will, that is, the exercise of his own authority (cf. 5:30b). He does not place himself in God’s way, or put himself in the place of God, as a hindrance for people seeking the true bread from heaven, which is eternal life. For he came down from heaven for no other reason than to carry out the will of the Father. And this will, which is twice emphatically referred to as such in vss. 39 and 40 (“and this,” “for this”) and is explicated in two parallel sentences, consists precisely in the fact that “he will lose nothing” of “that which the Father gives him” (cf. vs. 37) “but raise it up at the last day.” These last words return like a refrain in the following verses (vss. 39, 40, 44, and 54), not as a later addition (to offset a one-sided “realized eschatology”) but to bring to full expression the heavenly, transcendent character (expressed in the title “Son of man,” vss. 27, 53; cf. 3:13; 5:27ff.) of Jesus’ mission. That mission is not limited to a gift that, like the manna, was only of temporal significance (cf. vs. 49). What he gives has validity that “endures unto eternal life” (vs. 27). For (vs. 40) it is the will of God in the sending of his Son that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life and be raised on the last day—that and nothing else. Here again “seeing” occurs in its pregnant meaning, as in vs. 26, namely as the seeing of the Son in whom the Father fulfills his saving will in its all-embracing eschatological gift for humankind and world.

41, 42 It is precisely at this point that Jesus’ hearers react anew. They are now described as “the Jews,” the name that John often uses for Jewish leaders and spokesmen hostile to Jesus. The idea that a historical situation other than what the passage explicitly refers to should be inferred from this title is an unnecessary hypothesis. The speakers here are obviously Galileans (vs. 42).¹²⁴ When Jesus now describes himself without restraint as the one who came down from heaven, they rebel, “murmur” (cf. vs. 61), probably an allusion to what their ancestors had done in the wilderness in their unbelief toward Moses (cf. Ex. 16:2, 7ff.).¹²⁵ And they do so (vs. 42) by telling each other that as Galileans they certainly knew who he was and where he came from. For was this Jesus—the man who was so emphatically talking about himself—not the son of Joseph? We find the same sort of comment in 1:45, 46 and in Mt. 13:55. The Fourth Evangelist goes his own way, but over and over we discover that he is speaking about the same Jesus and the same history as his fellow Evangelists. Still the reference to Jesus’ earthly origin does not always have the same intent. In Matthew the people are astonished and wonder how someone whose background they thought they knew could exhibit so much wisdom and power. Here the situation is reversed: how could someone whom they knew as the son of Joseph say, “I have come down from heaven”? As long as people kept their attention on Jesus’ earthly origins, insight into the true secret of Jesus’ coming into the world—that is, faith in the descent of the Son of God, the incarnation of the Word—always suffered shipwreck, and offense at this always triumphed over astonishment (cf. Mt. 13:57). That is the message of the Gospel of John, and Jesus’ answer in vss. 43ff. also concerns this issue.

43-45 Although “the Jews” do not address Jesus directly but express their displeasure and unbelief with regard to his claims to heavenly descent “among themselves” (vs. 43), he is by no means unaware of their reaction. His answer is first of all sharply negative: “Stop murmuring among yourselves!” Nor does he respond to the objection expressed in the words “Is not this …?” What they regard as possible or impossible by their human standards (cf. 5:43ff.) will never bring them to faith in his name or make them participants in his imperishable gift. This demonstrates the powerlessness of the natural person (“no one”) to come to the salvation disclosed in Christ unless the Father who sent him “draws” that person, that is, moves him or her toward it (for this “drawing” see also 12:32 and Jr. 31:3;¹²⁶ Ho. 11:14). It may seem that by this statement Jesus wants to bring out the fruitlessness of any dialogue with Jews. Some speak of a concept of predestination in John: that the Jews do not want to come to Jesus shows that they have not been drawn by God and therefore that for them salvation is not a possibility.

But as vs. 45 shows, the intent is clearly otherwise. Jesus bases the negative pronouncement of vs. 44a on a divine promise of salvation, “as it is written in the prophets,”¹²⁷ namely, “They shall all be taught by God.” Although not cited verbatim, the reference is apparently to the statement in Is. 54:13, where to a confused and needy Israel the promise is given that God himself will impart to them the true knowledge of salvation that they so direly lack: “All your children will be taught by the LORD,” a promise also extended elsewhere with regard to a future salvation (cf. Jr. 31:33, 34) as the gift of the new covenant between God and his people by which they all come to know the Lord, “from the least of them to the greatest” (cf. 1 Th. 4:9; 1 Jn. 2:20, 27ff.). By appealing to this promise of salvation vis-à-vis Jews, Jesus therefore does not a priori exclude Jews: in the “all” of prophecy the universal character of God’s redemptive will is implied.

But Jesus does confront these Jews with the reverse side of this promise, namely that no one will share in this salvation on the basis of his or her own insight and knowledge (cf. “we know,” vs. 42 and 3:2). What prevents “the Jews” from coming to Jesus and believing in him, therefore, is not that salvation is not intended for them but that they do not want to receive it in the manner in which God would give it to them, namely by their coming to Jesus. For “everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” Hence the remarkable fact is that Jesus would have the Jews understand their unbelief and powerlessness (“no one can …”) in light of a divine prophecy of salvation. The very thing that they reject in him as self-willed conceit is what God wants to give them in him. “Unless the Father draws him” (vs. 44) therefore applies to them, not only negatively but also positively.

Of course, this does not make rationally transparent the relationship between coming to Jesus as a consequence of the divine drawing and as a voluntary and responsible act. On the basis of “everyone,” Bultmann concludes that “any man is free to be among those drawn by the Father.”¹²⁸ “Draw” is said to mean only “let oneself be drawn.” But this exegesis has correctly been rejected by others as not in keeping with “hearing” and “learning”¹²⁹ totally determined by the divine will to save. “No one can come to me” is intended to take away the illusion that “coming to Jesus” is a matter about which one can freely decide on the basis of one’s own “knowledge” and possibilities. This observation keeps coming back in the Gospel (cf. 1:12, 13; 3:3ff.; 5:44); one might call it one of its fundamental thoughts. On the other hand, however, it is no less typical for the Fourth Gospel that in (not despite) its radical reference to God it calls a person to do what he or she cannot do of himself or herself, just as the lame man is told to arise and the dead to become alive again.¹³⁰ Even the present pericope ends with an implied appeal to believe (vs. 47). No attempt is made to explain faith’s involvement in the vivifying power of God.¹³¹ The Bible speaks in two ways about a reality that as a miracle from God is not transparent to the intellect but to which the gospel seeks to open the eyes and hearts of people.

46, 47 The end of the pericope stipulates anew that God’s turning to people and “being taught” of all are realized exclusively in him who is sent from God: “Not that anyone has seen the Father except him who is from God;¹³² he has seen the Father.” The content of the first clause is true also of those who have “heard and learned from the Father.” That which God has caused them to hear and understand is not realized in the immediacy of “seeing” God, but only through the mediation of him who is from God and who descended from heaven. For “seeing” the Father, as the ultimate source of the knowledge and certainty of God’s saving will for all, is the experience only of him who has come from God (cf. 1:18; 3:11, 32; 5:37; 7:29). Admittedly, it seems that preceding “coming to me” (vs. 45c) there is a “hearing and a learning” from the Father (cf. vs. 44). But we are dealing here not with a number of steps or phases set out in salvation-order but with an attempt to analyze conceptually the indivisible unity of the work of the Father and the Son. No one comes to the Son unless drawn by the Father. But, along with that, no one hears the vivifying voice of God except in the Son, and those who hear his voice will live and be raised on the last day (cf. 5:25).

Accordingly, everything issues in that believing “hearing” in the great emphatic conclusion for all—at the same time the transition to what follows: “Truly, truly, I say to you that he who believes has eternal life.” “Believing” is now referred to absolutely, without an indicated object. Many manuscripts add the words “in me”; some “in God.” But one cannot make such distinctions here. Indicated in the absolute “believe” is rather that God does not want to be believed in any other way than in him whom he has sent (cf. 1:18; 14:1). With that the end of the pericope returns to the beginning (vss. 36ff.) and the way has been cleared, in direct connection with vss. 26-35, for the unfolding of the vivifying power of the bread that has come down from heaven.

6:48-59

“The Bread That I Will Give Is My Flesh”

48-51b As already stated, vss. 48ff. refer back to what was initially said with regard to the Scripture citation in vs. 31 and pursue that line of thought. Again Jesus posits what can be regarded as the main theme of the entire discourse (or dialogue), namely that he is the life-giving bread, and now in contrast with what the Jews considered that bread to be: the manna given by Moses. To this Jesus adds as a new argument that the fathers, to whom the Jews have appealed (“your fathers,” alluding to “our fathers” in vs. 31), though they ate the manna given them through Moses, died. In contrast Jesus states (vs. 50) that the true bread (cf. vs. 32) from heaven can only be that which, if a person eats it, he or she will not die. And in vs. 51a he repeats that statement, this time directly applying it to himself: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” However wonderful the descent of manna from heaven was, however much it was a fruit of God’s creative word (cf. Dt. 8:3; Mt. 4:4), as “food that perishes” (vs. 27) it had only temporary life-giving power. By contrast, the bread that Jesus is and gives to eat has an effect not bounded by death but continuing into eternal life.

It is important to note that the figurative language about Jesus as the bread of life has become somewhat more specific in these verses. Now “eating” is included. That which has been expressed without imagery in the words “believe” and “come to me” (vss. 35, 47) is now, in connection with Jesus’ self-identification as “the bread,” metaphorically called “eating this bread” or (vs. 57) even more directly “eating me.” Hence it is clear that “eating” is a metaphor that flows directly from the semantics of the preceding and does not suddenly emerge from another (sacramental) semantic context.¹³³

51c The general pronouncement about the life-giving power of the bread that Jesus is and gives now takes a most remarkable turn, and at the same time the secret of the preceding words is laid bare. In a single stroke Jesus adds to the clause about “eating the bread” the following: “and the bread that I shall give is my flesh—for the life of the world.”¹³⁴

At this point opinions about the meaning of the rest of this pericope strongly diverge, especially over whether and to what degree vss. 51c-58 or even the entire bread discourse (with or apart from the preceding bread miracle) are to be understood sacramentally (see comments on vs. 15 above). One can list the different views as follows:¹³⁵

a) The most extreme view is that of those who not only understand “my flesh” in vs. 41c and “eat my flesh” in vss. 53ff. as sacramental, but also, partly on that basis, consider the entire bread discourse and the preceding feeding miracle “eucharistic.” So many Catholic exegetes (early and recent) and many others—Cullmann, for example.¹³⁶ The bread about which Jesus is speaking throughout the discourse is that which he distributes to believers at the Lord’s Supper. Because of this total orientation of the content to the eucharist, the unity of the discourse is not a problem to these authors.

b) Others argue with no less emphasis that there is no discernible trace of sacramentalism either in vss. 27-50 or in the account of the bread miracle, but that in vs. 51c (others say in vs. 53) a shift occurs from the symbolic and metaphorical reference to Jesus as bread to a very different sacramental use of words, in which “eating” and “drinking” are to be understood realistically. For some interpreters this shift constitutes the (decisive) argument that vss. 51c-58 (or 53-58) are later than what precedes, either inserted by a redactor who sought in this way to compensate for the lack of the Lord’s Supper in the Fourth Gospel in order to make the Gospel more acceptable to the church community¹³⁷ or, less radically, a development within the process of tradition in which eucharistic undertones present in the first part of the chapter became more pronounced.¹³⁸ Interpreters sometimes also base the alleged nonoriginality of vss. 51c-58 on the reactions that follow the discourse in vss. 60ff. They regard vss. 63ff. as especially hard to reconcile with vss. 51ff., whereas vss. 60ff. harmonize well with vss. 27-50. This sequence is said to have been disturbed by the insertion of vss. 51c-58.

c) Many contemporary interpreters distance themselves clearly from this basic sacramental (“eucharistic”) exposition of vss. 51c-58 and a fortiori of the entire chapter. Admittedly, many also remain convinced that in vss. 53ff.—specifically on the basis of the expressions “eat my flesh” and “drink my blood”—we are dealing with sacramental language. This is not to say, however, that vss. 51c (53)-58 refer materially to eating and drinking in the Lord’s Supper, thus imparting a “eucharistic” meaning to the conclusion. The Evangelist (not, of course, Jesus) is said to have derived the imagery or the terminology from the eucharistic meal in order to bring out forcefully Jesus’ significance as the bread of life—a significance variously described: as the offense of Jesus’ death on the cross,¹³⁹ as the unity between Jesus and believers,¹⁴⁰ as the reality of the incarnation;¹⁴¹ in other words, in all this we are dealing not with the mystery of the sacrament but with the mystery of christology. Others, especially Roman Catholic interpreters, though maintaining the basically eucharistic interpretation of vss. 51-58, point out that in these verses the reference is more generally to fellowship in Christ’s flesh and blood than to fellowship only in the eucharist; as a result both the sacramental and hence proper “eating and drinking” at the Lord’s Supper and the symbolic eating of Christ’s self-surrender in death prove to be more “tightly connected … than first appears.”¹⁴² At any rate, in such ways attempts are made to maintain the unmistakable unity of the entire discourse in John 6. On the other hand, in this movement between the sacramental-realistic and the symbolic-metaphorical interpretation of Jesus’ words¹⁴³ there is such ambivalence that one cannot avoid asking whether the ambivalence is not rather to be attributed to the interpreter than to the text.

d) Calvin, with an appeal to Augustine, articulated clearly and consistently a rejection of this sacramental interpretation of vss. 51c-58: the discourse speaks not of the Lord’s Supper but of uninterrupted fellowship with Christ, even apart from observance of the Supper.¹⁴⁴ He regarded the first alternative, identification of the whole discourse and miracle story as sacramental, as in conflict not only with the historical situation in which the words were spoken but also with the significance of the Lord’s Supper itself, since, according to vs. 54, this sacramental eating and drinking would guarantee eternal life and resurrection from the dead. He therefore considered it certain that Jesus is speaking here of “the perpetual eating of faith” (Ideo de perpetua fidei manducatione eum tractare certum est), which is not restricted to the Lord’s Supper. On the other hand, he acknowledged that

there is nothing said here that is not figured and actually presented to believers in the Lord’s Supper. Indeed, we might say that Christ intended the holy Supper to be a seal of this discourse. This is also the reason why John makes no mention of the Lord’s Supper. And therefore Augustine follows the proper order when, in expounding this chapter, he does not touch on the Lord’s Supper until he comes to the end. And then he shows that this mystery is represented in a symbol whenever the Churches celebrate the sacred Supper.…¹⁴⁵

More recent exegetes have given important arguments in support of Calvin’s view.¹⁴⁶ Most recent interpreters, however, still cling to the so-called sacramental terminology (see under c), though it seems that the tendency to distance oneself even from this approach is growing.¹⁴⁷

However one construes the sequel, there is in any case no reason to interpret vs. 51c in a sacramental sense.¹⁴⁸ What is remarkable about the shift in vs. 51c is that now Jesus suddenly speaks of his flesh as the bread that he will give for the life of the world. But this only means, in keeping with the line of thought followed in the discourse thus far (and in the entire Gospel), that the vivifying power of the bread (that he both is and gives) consists in that he gives himself for the world, by his self-surrender in death.¹⁴⁹ The idea that this self-surrender should occur especially in the sacrament is, in general, totally foreign to the Fourth Gospel (cf. 10:11, 15; 11:51-52; 15:13; 18:14, where each time the reference is to Jesus’ death); nor is it in any way expressed or suggested in vs. 51c. The words “bread,” “give,” and “for the life of the world” all echo what has been said earlier (cf. vss. 27, 32, 33) and have nothing to do there with the Eucharist. And as far as the core word “flesh” is concerned, in the argument that has been followed until now there is no reason to understand it any differently from the way it is used elsewhere in the Gospel, namely, as a reference to the human as such (sometimes in combination with “blood” [cf. 1:13; 3:6])—above all, as the most characteristic christological qualification of the earthly-human existence of the one who descended from heaven.¹⁵⁰ Accordingly, what comes to expression in the shift in vs. 51c is nothing other and nothing less than that he who is true bread given by God not only descended from heaven and became flesh but also surrendered himself to death in that flesh, that is, in the totality of his earthly-human existence, in order thus to give his life to the world. In vs. 53 this flesh is referred to as “the flesh (and blood) of the Son of man” (cf. vs. 27!), which makes it all the more clear that in this expression we are not dealing with a “shift to the sacramental” but with a new explication of the pregnant pronouncement in 3:13: only by “descending” will the Son of man “be exalted.” What is described there (3:14), on the analogy of Nu. 21:8ff., as the necessity that “the Son of man be lifted up, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” namely on the cross, is here referred to in the language of the bread discourse as the gift of Jesus’ flesh: the true bread descended from heaven for the life of the world. In the increasing clarity with which—in this last great dialogue in Galilee—Jesus announces his death, we have before us the Johannine version of the same paradoxical shift in Jesus’ self-revelation as occurs in the Synoptics, where Jesus announces to his disciples that the Son of man “must suffer many things” (Mk. 8:31; 9:31 par.).

52 To the Jews Jesus’ statement was not only totally obscure but also highly offensive. Again, as in vss. 41ff., they avoid a direct confrontation with Jesus himself. It seemed to them increasingly clear that common ground for conversation with him was lacking. That they “disputed among themselves” (cf. vs. 43) does not mean that some were for and others against Jesus but that in vehement mutual discussion they gave vent to their astonishment and displeasure. Earlier already they had expressed these feelings when he called himself the bread descended from heaven (vs. 41), adding that only those who ate of that bread would never die but have life (vss. 50, 51a); now they had to hear that this bread consisted in his flesh. As so often in the Fourth Gospel (cf. 3:3; 4:11; 6:7), so here, the natural person’s utter incomprehension is expressed in questions that disregard the deeper meaning of Jesus’ words but cling to the sound, here in a question calculated to bring out as clearly as possible the absurdity of Jesus’ pronouncements: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” After all, they were not cannibals!

53 Jesus’ reply makes no concession to their misunderstanding. Rather, he takes over their own words in all their offensiveness, making them his own with all the authority at his disposal and posing what they repudiate among themselves as utterly offensive and foolish as the absolute and exclusive condition (“Truly, truly, I say to you, that unless …”) for receiving eternal life. Here that life is called “to have life in you,” a phrase that is not of course meant in the sense of 5:26 but of 6:57 (cf. 4:14; 7:37). Nor does he tone down their words as though they were too strong. He does introduce some new nuances by speaking not only of “eating the flesh” but also of “drinking the blood”—as though to accentuate the “hardness” (vs. 60) of the whole even more—and by referring not to “my” flesh but to the flesh and blood “of the Son of man.” Thus, in continuing agreement with what he has already said about the Son of man (cf. vs. 27 and the comments on vs. 51c), he again and now even more dramatically brings out the paradoxical unity of the highest authority with the deepest self-surrender. Here, too, it is evident that the sacramental interpretation of this pericope bypasses the actual point at issue, namely, that which is unintelligible and offensive for those who judge “according to the flesh” (the “skandalon,” vs. 61) of Jesus’ pronouncements. This skandalon, after all, is not that Jesus gives his flesh to eat and blood to drink in a figurative sense, as in the Lord’s Supper. If that were the case, the whole misunderstanding would only arise from the fact that the Jews did not (yet!) understand sacramental language¹⁵¹ and the entire issue could have been cleared up with a word! What Jesus maintains here with the greatest possible force, both vis-à-vis “the Jews” and somewhat later vis-à-vis the disciples who can no longer follow him in this respect (vss. 60ff.), is nothing less than the surrender to death of the flesh and blood of the Son of man and the (believing) “eating” and “drinking” of it as the bread that came down from heaven by which alone a human being can live (vs. 50).

It is precisely to these pronouncements, however, that the advocates of the eucharistic interpretation always appeal. The argument goes like this: whereas one could still understand “my flesh” in vs. 51c to refer to Jesus’ self-offering in death, the addition “his (my) blood” in vss. 53 and 54 makes it undeniably clear that the reference is to the Lord’s Supper.¹⁵² Moreover, in this context the words “eat flesh” and “drink blood” are totally unintelligible—except in a sacramental sense. When these expressions occur elsewhere, they either describe bitter hostility (cf. Ps. 27:2; Zc. 11:9) or “some horrendous thing forbidden in God’s law” (cf. Gn. 9:4; Lv. 17:10; Dt. 12:23; Ac. 15:20, etc.). “Thus, if Jesus’ words in VI 53 are to have a favorable meaning, they must refer to the Eucharist.”¹⁵³

However, this argument cannot be maintained on either terminological or material grounds. As for terminology, however much at first sight these words remind one of the words of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, on closer scrutiny they deviate from them in a way that is very characteristic for John: “Flesh” does not occur anywhere in the New Testament terminology of the eucharist and, as stated earlier in connection with vs. 51c, must rather be understood in terms of the incarnation. Accordingly, the addition in vs. 53 of “blood” must not be understood, as it would be with “body,” as sacrifice language (“my blood of the covenant, poured out for many,” Mt. 26:28 par.); with “flesh,” as here, it constitutes the usual designation of that which is human per se (cf. Mt. 16:17; 1 Co. 15:50; Jn. 1:13) and thus reinforces the incarnation motif here. Therefore it cannot be accidental¹⁵⁴ that mention is made here of “the flesh and blood” of “the Son of man,” a combination that occurs nowhere in the communion texts¹⁵⁵ and is not intrinsically connected with them, whereas here it clearly links up both with what has already been said about the Son of man’s authority over the food that endures (vs. 27) and with the full meaning of his “descent from heaven” (see the comments on vs. 51c). Furthermore, the argument that the “hard” expressions (“eat his flesh” and “drink his blood”) can only have a favorable meaning if this eating and drinking is understood sacramentally completely disregards the skandalon expressed in the passage (see the comments on vss. 52, 53).¹⁵⁶

If from this it may be evident that even on terminological grounds vss. 51cff. must be understood completely within the context of the preceding bread discourse and that there is no transition to a sacramental semantics, much more serious are the material objections, advanced from of old—see Calvin, above!—and increasingly in more recent schoalarship, against the sacramental interpretation of vss. 51c-58 (and, in consequence, of the whole of ch. 6). At issue specifically is the absolute salvific significance accorded in these verses to “eating the flesh” and “drinking the blood” of the Son of man. This absolute and exclusive meaning cannot have been intended for the—still to be instituted—sacrament and participation in it, but only for Jesus’ self-offering in death as the food and drink of eternal life given by Jesus for the life of the world and taken with the mouth of faith. At no point in this Gospel or any part of the New Testament is such an absolute value accorded to the sacrament—however important it is—as though in it the great redemptive event of Jesus’ self-sacrifice was realized; and nowhere is there such an unbreakable and exclusive link between the eating and drinking of the eucharist and participation in eternal life, as there would have to be in vs. 54 in the sacramental interpretation, as though only those who received the eucharist had the guarantee of eternal life. It is therefore correct to say, with Schlatter, for example, that John does not describe Jesus as the founder of a sacrament but as the one who feeds his church with life by means of his body offered up in death.¹⁵⁷ Or in the words of Strathmann: “He [the Evangelist] linked the acquisition of life, which occupies him throughout his entire Gospel, not to a—here, once, ambiguously treated—ritual act but to the act of coming to Jesus, the crucified Son of God, and believing in him.”¹⁵⁸

Authors such as Schnackenburg and Bultmann who proceed from the sacramental view have encountered the difficulty that such exclusive significance is apparently attributed here to the eucharist. Schnackenburg sees a possible explanation in the idea that the Evangelist was opposing a Gnostic-docetic group that rejected the reception of the eucharist. Accordingly, the audience of the bread-discourse is said to shift here from “unbelieving Judaism” to a much later sect in the church.¹⁵⁹ Even apart from the forced character of such a “digression” in the discourse, there is the remaining objection that the Fourth Gospel, which otherwise does not mention the institution of the Lord’s Supper, should suddenly proclaim here with the greatest possible emphasis that participation in it is the indispensable condition for, and infallible guarantee of, eternal life.

Bultmann, therefore, wants to see in the connection made here between the Supper and eternal life a later view of the Lord’s Supper as “the medicine of immortality” (pharmakon athanasias). According to this view, “those who participate in the sacramental meal bear within them the power that guarantees their resurrection.”¹⁶⁰ For Bultmann this is just one more argument for the utter strangeness of this pericope in the Gospel. He therefore attributes the pericope to a later ecclesiastical editor.

Still somewhat different is the explanation that Brown offers for the absolutizing of the sacramental eating and drinking. In his opinion, we are dealing here with a typically Johannine “contribution to eucharistic theology.” Whereas the Synoptics and Paul still link the words of institution tightly to the remembrance of Jesus’ death, John is said to have detached the eucharist from the context of the Last Supper and its interpretation as food and drink that imparts eternal life. John “has launched Christianity on the road to a distinctive sacramental theology whereby visible elements are signs communicating divine realities.”¹⁶¹ Here too—in order to interpret the absoluteness of the statements in vss. 53 and 54 “eucharistically”—a search is made for a link with later ecclesiastical developments or deviations in the doctrine of the sacraments.

But these forced solutions are the—perhaps inevitable—result of the sacramental interpretation of this pericope. They become irrelevant the moment one sees that “eating Jesus’ flesh” and “drinking his blood” are the specific description not of the physical eating and drinking that take place at the Lord’s Supper but of the believing appropriation—by the mouth of faith—of Jesus’ self-offering in death.¹⁶²

54, 55 Vs. 54 repeats the content of vs. 53 in almost the same words,¹⁶³ but now in a positive sense and in the first person as relating to Jesus himself. It is the descent of the Son of man, his “exaltation” on the cross, the “must” of 3:14, that determine the course of Jesus’ life and bring it about that those who thus eat him in his self-offering in death as the bread that came down from heaven already now receive the life-giving power of that food and drink (“have eternal life”) and will be raised up by him on the last day (cf. vss. 39, 41, 44). For the authority to do this is given to him as the Son of man (vs. 27; cf. 5:27). Vs. 55 then again stresses that there is life for the world only in the way of Jesus’ self-offering to death: “For my flesh is food indeed,” namely “the food that endures to eternal life” (vs. 27), and “my blood is drink indeed,” namely a drink that takes away one’s thirst, not temporarily but forever (vs. 35; cf. 4:14).

56 In this eating and drinking of his flesh and blood lies the secret of the enduring fellowship between Jesus and his own, which is here described as a mutual “remaining in” one another, an expression that recurs in the Gospel in a variety of ways.¹⁶⁴ For this “eating” and “drinking” are not a one-time event but a repeated activity of faith.¹⁶⁵ It remains an eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood, for the spring of all life continues to be his self-offering in death. But it works itself out as a lasting fellowship between him and those who believe in him—on their part as a continual centering on him who gave himself for them, on his part as his indwelling in them with all his gifts and power (cf., e.g., 7:37, 38).

57 Accordingly, this eating can also reflect Jesus’ relationship with God and can be traced back to the way he himself lives “because of the Father” (διὰ τòν πατέρα). “The living Father,” from whom all life springs, has sent him, and Jesus lives “because of him,” namely in virtue of that mission and the living fellowship with the Father (of whom he says elsewhere that it is his “food to do the will of him who sent me,” 4:34). So it is also with the relationship between Jesus and his own: “so he who eats me will live because of me.” The focus is the continual exercise of fellowship. Believers live “because of him”; “having eternal life in oneself” is not automatic. It is remaining in him, the living Lord, that here, in close association with vs. 50, is called “eating me.” It is not only directed to the one-time act of his self-offering into death (“eat my flesh,” etc.) but to himself, the one who once performed this act (“eating me”).

58 Here at the end everything returns to the beginning in the form of a recapitulation (inclusio) in which the heaven-descended bread, its life-giving power, and its total superiority over what the fathers ate in the wilderness are pointed out one more time. But this time the key word is added: “He who eats this bread will live forever,” with all the connotative power that “this bread” acquired in the course of the dialogue and with all the emphasis on “eating,” not as a legal condition but in accord with what “eating and drinking” means for “life”: only the one who eats and drinks will live.

59 As elsewhere (cf. 8:20), Jesus’ teaching is followed by a reference to its setting, here the synagogue at Capernaum. Jesus’ discourse is called “teaching,” which in the Fourth Gospel is a rarely occurring qualification of what Jesus did (see further the comments on 7:14). There is no clearly marked transition between Jesus’ first encounter with the people on the day after the bread miracle and this meeting in the synagogue. This proves that the Evangelist’s aim was not to furnish insight into the precise course of events, and it indicates that this discourse (or dialogue) about the bread of life formed a historically and locally demarcated climax—and at the same time a decisive turning point—in Jesus’ public ministry in Galilee, as the following pericope shows.

6:60-71

Division among the Disciples

Verse 60, coming after the conclusive vs. 59, no longer belongs to that which occurred in the synagogue at Capernaum but speaks of the reaction that Jesus’ discourse prompted, especially among his disciples. The reference is not to the Twelve (cf. vs. 70) but to a wider circle of people who had joined him as pupils and followed him (cf. also 7:3, and for Judea also 3:22; 4:1). The idea that such people, since they are not mentioned in the preceding, cannot be the respondents here to what was said there, imposes demands on the historical completeness of the Fourth Gospel that it was obviously not at all designed to meet. The point, rather, is to make it clear that this discourse was not only misunderstood by “the Jews” (vss. 41, 51) but also formed a turning point for many of Jesus’ followers. To what they had heard many of them responded by saying: “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” With this they were not rebelling against what Jesus had said. The phrase “this saying” is not specifically identified but presumably relates to the conclusion of the discourse. The argument that vs. 60 ties in better with vs. 50 than with vs. 58 and that vss. 51-58 therefore have to be viewed as a later insertion is hard to accept. Especially for Jesus’ disciples the offensiveness of his words certainly derived not from the fact that they had to accept him as the one sent by God from heaven, but from the idea that their salvation should be bound up with his self-offering into death. This is also clear from Jesus’ answer in what follows.

61, 62 Although their words were not addressed to him, Jesus does respond (cf. 4:34; 6:43; 7:16, 28, etc.). The Semitic expression “knowing in himself that …” means not only that Jesus knew what people were thinking (see the comments on 2:24ff.; cf. Mk. 2:8) but also that he was aware of the offensive nature of his words. Here again they “murmur” or “grumble,” as did “the Jews” in vss. 41, 43. Jesus then speaks of “taking offense,” “causing to stumble,” “making someone fall,” an expression that recurs in the New Testament in connection with the humanly unacceptable road Jesus had to go, ending in his death on the cross (cf. 16:1; 1 Co. 1:23; Gl. 5:1; Mt. 11:6).

His question, “Do you take offense at this?” is followed in vs. 62 by a second question in which he apparently seeks to confront his apostate disciples with the prematurity and serious consequence of their reaction. This question, in keeping with a rhetorical device,¹⁶⁶ is incomplete: “[But what] if you should see the Son of man ascend to where he was before?” The apodosis apparently intended is: “Would you also then [or still]¹⁶⁷ take offense?” Still, the intent of the question is not easy to discern. The idea that with “see … ascending” Jesus had in mind that his disciples were to witness his ascension (cf. Lk. 24:51) is, because of the “many” (vs. 60) he was addressing, hard to accept. The story of the ascension is lacking in the Fourth Gospel, though the statement in 20:17 apparently refers to this event. It is much more natural to take the ascent here as parallel to the descent mentioned in the preceding discourse (cf. vss. 33, 38, 41; see also both in 3:13).

Many interpreters take this “ascent” in the sense elsewhere implied in “exaltation,” that is, as a reference to Jesus’ crucifixion (so “exaltation” in 3:14 [associated with “ascend” in vs. 14]; 8:12; 12:32, 34), and conclude that Jesus here meant that the offense that the disciples take at his preceding words will come over them fully only when they witness his “exaltation” on the cross. But then it might be too late for them. For then they would also be confronted with the glory of the Son of man as judge, a glory that after all he was to receive in the way of his “exaltation” on the cross (cf. 8:28). But it is questionable whether such a future climax of the skandalon can be intended here. “Ascend” does not have as ambivalent a meaning as “exalt.” The entire focus in Jesus’ question is the future glory of the Son of man, with an implied reference to the glory with which he, precisely as the Son of man, was clothed “before” as the one sealed by the Father (cf. vs. 27; 17:5, 24) and thus to the unity of “descending” and “ascending” as the great mystery of the gospel (cf. 3:13ff.). Whereas in the preceding discourse the descent has been brought to the limit of its implications (“eating the flesh of the Son of man and drinking his blood”), here Jesus confronts his disciples, who are “offended” by what he says, with his full identity as the Son of man descended from heaven. On that basis, do they realize what they are doing? If it is he who gives them his flesh to eat and blood to drink (cf. vs. 27), what then¹⁶⁸ if they should one day see this Son of man ascend again to where he was before? Where then would they be with their unbelief and skandalon?

Where and how they would “see” this ascent is not made explicit. One cannot even say that Jesus predicts that “seeing”—whether as an experience of salvation that will one day shame them or as a judgment awaiting them (as in 8:28; cf. also Mt. 26:64). Jesus speaks—less specifically—of the “if” (if it should one day happen that they would “see” him thus),¹⁶⁹ not, of course, as though that exaltation is only a possibility, but to confront his disciples in a very telling way with the possibility that, as long as they measure the way and salvation of the Son of man by their human standards, they might be terribly wrong, even if they still cannot conceive of that. (See the comments on 3:3, 5ff. Here, too, lies the transition to vs. 63.)

63 Just as in his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus speaks of what is, or is not, acceptable to human thought (vs. 61: “Who can listen to this?”) and divine reality in the light of the contrast between “Spirit” and “flesh.” Only the Spirit, as the author of God’s renewing and redeeming work, makes alive, creates and imparts life. But the Spirit does so in the way and manner of the Spirit (cf. 3:8). The flesh cannot touch it! The words Jesus has spoken “are Spirit and life”; they are from God, hence life-giving for whoever believes. But the flesh—in its reflections and powerlessness—is of no avail here; it cannot hear that word, it takes offense at it, and it lapses into unbelief (vss. 64, 65).¹⁷⁰

With this interpretation of the opposites “Spirit” and “flesh,” I am rejecting the view that “flesh” here is an echo of what Jesus said earlier (vss. 50ff.) about his flesh. In this connection one must again distinguish between those who regard vss. 50cff. as referring to the “sacramental” flesh and blood of Jesus and those who (correctly, I think) understand by his “flesh” (and blood) Jesus’ self-offering to death (see above). Noteworthy among the former is Zwingli, who, in the conflict over the Lord’s Supper, based his opposition to the real presence of Jesus’ body and blood in the Lord’s Supper on vs. 63. In vs. 63, he thought, Jesus clearly indicated that, in the signs of his body and blood with which he nourishes his disciples at the Lord’s Supper, he is only present in a spiritual manner. Thus, in the Lord’s Supper “it is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh (the material) is of no use.”

Many more recent commentators who reject the sacramental view of “flesh and blood” nevertheless believe that “flesh” in vs. 63 does relate to “flesh” in vs. 51c, and then in the sense that, over against his flesh (and blood), which he gives for the life of the world, Jesus here posits the vivifying Spirit that he would acquire and have at his disposal through his ascension. In this manner, then, Jesus is said to make known that, although his self-offering into death is the way in which he would fulfill his promise to those who would “eat” this flesh (and “drink” his blood; i.e., believe), taken by itself it would be of no avail.¹⁷¹ But this view is not acceptable because it is hard to think that, after speaking (in vss. 50ff.) of his “flesh” as the heaven-descended, life-giving bread, which to eat is the absolute and exclusive condition for “having life in oneself” (vs. 53), Jesus would now in vs. 63 describe it as “of no avail.” Furthermore, if one thus sets the vivifying Spirit of the exalted Son of man over against his flesh, one thus fails to appreciate the peculiar salvific import that Jesus’ death itself has for his own and dissolves it, as it were, in the Spirit.

This by no means warrants the conclusion, however, that vss. 60ff. cannot be the original continuation of vss. 50ff. but link up immediately with vss. 35-50.¹⁷² Those who hold this view state correctly that by “flesh” (vs. 63) is meant human flesh in general in its opposition to Spirit, as in 3:6f. But they add that the offense that the “flesh” takes at Jesus’ preceding words cannot be reconciled with the way in which, in vss. 50ff., Jesus speaks of his flesh. On the contrary: the great skandalon for the natural person (cf. Mt. 16:23b!) present in the descent of the Son of man consists in the fact that he must be lifted up on the cross and enter into death; and that the food that he will give and that endures to eternal life (vs. 27) consists in his flesh and blood offered up into death as the flesh that is food indeed and the blood that is drink indeed (vs. 55).

Verse 64 directly applies the contrasting alternatives in vs. 63 to the break now becoming manifest among the disciples. Over against the life-giving power of Jesus’ words as Spirit the flesh now asserts itself as unbelief that takes offense at those words. Jesus speaks of “some of you,” whereas in vss. 60 and 66 the reference is to “many.” His statement, “there are some of you who do not believe,” is not meant as a direct portrayal of the state of affairs but rather as a revealing description of what was beginning to manifest itself among the disciples: “unbelief” as, fundamentally, the inability and refusal to accept Jesus for who he is. Those whom Jesus is referring to had indeed followed him, were impressed by his words and works, and in that sense had begun to believe in him (cf. 2:23; 7:31; 8:30). But that faith was to suffer shipwreck and would be manifest as nonbelief, because they were unable to overcome the offense felt by the flesh at the increasing visibility of the cross. Jesus—according to the Evangelist—knew from the beginning (from the beginning of his ministry and his choosing of his disciples; cf. vs. 70; see also 13:11, 18, 21ff.) that he would be betrayed and who would betray him. This says something both about Jesus’ knowledge of people (cf. the comments on 2:24, 25) and about the outcome of his life. It is clear, nowhere more than here, that the cross has a dominant place in the Fourth Gospel.

65 The words “This is why I told you” connect with vs. 64a and obviously refer back to vs. 44 (cf. vss. 37ff.). Faith, here described as “coming to me” (as in vss. 35, 37, etc.), does not lie within the domain of “the flesh”; it is only possible as a gift from God (see the comments on vss. 44ff. above), namely as being “taught by God” and being “born of God,” or “from above” (1:13; 3:3ff.). By saying this Jesus does not separate faith from his own words, which call people to believe and confront them with the need to make a decision. But when a person obeys this summons, that happens not on account of that person’s reflections and wisdom but on account of the power of the word itself, which “draws” that person and overcomes his or her powerlessness.

66, 67 The phrase “after this” or “from then on” marks the moment of an important break¹⁷³ among Jesus’ disciples that resulted in many of his followers no longer staying with him.¹⁷⁴ This break was apparently such that Jesus also placed before the Twelve the choice of remaining or leaving.¹⁷⁵ For the first time they are here called the Twelve (otherwise only in 20:24; see the comments on 1:35ff.). Here again knowledge of what the Synoptics say at much greater length about the choice and number of the disciples is presupposed.

68, 69 In fact, the whole scene here runs parallel with the story of Peter’s confession in Mt. 16:15ff.; Mk. 8:29; Lk. 9:20. In both a confession occurs in response to a question asked by Jesus and in contrast with what others say of him, and Jesus’ passion announcement is directly connected with a turning point in his relationship with his disciples (cf. also Mt. 16:24ff.; Mk. 8:34ff.; Lk. 9:23ff.).¹⁷⁶ In John Jesus’ question and Peter’s answer bear a clearer stamp of the crisis among those who followed Jesus. Peter’s resistance to Jesus’ passion announcement (Mt. 16:22) is not mentioned here (see also the comments on vs. 70). Peter clearly represents (“we”) true discipleship (and the true confessors: cf. 4:23) over against unbelief and apostasy, in the midst of which this confession is elicited; and he functions as such—over against Judas (vss. 70, 71)—as the great example and foundation of the Christian community (cf. Mt. 16:17ff.; see also there, as here in vs. 63, the contrast with “flesh and blood,” as also being “on God’s side” versus “on the side of people,” Mt. 16:17, 23).

Peter’s answer is a genuine confession not only because in it he adopts Jesus’ words as his own (cf. vs. 63b) but also because the faith that comes to expression in it reveals the awareness that Peter is confronting a radical choice: when life is at stake there is no other way to go than that of following Jesus (“to whom else …?” cf. 14:6). Vs. 69 brings out the most basic component in the answer. It is not merely a spontaneous reaction of fidelity and attachment to Jesus’ challenging question; it reveals a deepened insight¹⁷⁷ on the part of the disciples into the identity of the person in whom they have believed: “We have believed and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” The certainty of faith consists and rests in what it has grown to understand as its object: “The believer does not speak of himself but of him on whom he believes.”¹⁷⁸

This developed understanding of faith also comes to expression in the title with which Peter refers to Jesus. From the beginning the disciples have acknowledged and confessed Jesus as the Messiah (cf. 1:41, 45, 49). But the manner in which Peter now voices this conviction gives evidence of the totally new content this traditional title had acquired for the disciples (see the comments on 1:50, 51). With “you are” the authority and glory of Jesus’ “I am” pronouncements—a glory that exceeds all human expectations—is reflected. Accordingly “the Holy One of God” is not intended as a new messianic title alongside others but as a further description of this messianic identity (cf. also Mt. 16:16: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”). In this pronouncement Peter refers to Jesus as the one whom God placed at his own side before all others and destined and separated for his service (cf. 10:36; 17:19).¹⁷⁹ It is this wholly unique relationship of Jesus to God that has increasingly begun to shape the faith of Jesus’ disciples and has made them aware that in Jesus they are dealing in the most direct way with the reality of God.

70, 71 Just as Peter has spoken on behalf of the Twelve, so Jesus’ answer is also directed to them all. He does not respond specifically to Peter’s confession. Although Peter’s confession shows that it was inspired by the Spirit and not by the flesh (Mt. 16:17; vs. 63 above), now something else comes to the fore that ties in with vs. 69 and will be continued later: in the circle of the disciples, even of the Twelve, from which such an exalted confession sounded, the devil also did his work. In fact, a devil was present there. Jesus very sharply voices this in one concluding sentence. He reminds them that he had chosen them as “the Twelve” (cf. Mk. 3:14; Mt. 10:1; Lk. 6:13). Then in the same breath and as a profound complaint and indictment he adds: “and one of you is a devil.” The construction of the sentence marks the antithesis in all its sharpness. On the one hand, there was Jesus’ salvific election of the Twelve that he called to follow him as the numerically complete representation of Israel; on the other, precisely in this circle, there was the devil who would betray him and break that sacred number.

The sharp turn that, immediately after Peter’s confession, Jesus here gives to the conversation is most remarkable especially when one compares it with the shift in the parallel conversation in Matthew, where not Judas but Peter is rebuked by Jesus as Satan because of his opposition to Jesus’ announcement of his suffering and death (Mt. 16:23). We cannot say with any certainty whether John was familiar with this tradition preserved in Matthew. But if he was, this need not yet mean that he deliberately omitted it to spare Peter and that he therefore substituted Judas in the role of Satan. There is no evidence in the Fourth Gospel of any tendency to favor Peter (cf. 13:6ff., 36ff.; 18:5ff.; 20:4).

Something is at stake here on a totally different level than any supposed tendency on the part of the Evangelist or a later redactor to favor one disciple.¹⁸⁰ What the Evangelist (again; cf. vs. 64) brings out here is rather the extent of Jesus’ awareness of the radicalness of the separation that he, by placing the prospect of his death before his disciples, was causing and of the offense he was thereby unleashing. Hence this reaction to Peter’s sublime confession!—certainly not, in contrast with Matthew 16, to put a damper on it but because he knew that the “nature” of the death with which he would glorify God and draw many people to himself (cf. 12:33, 34) was also a great stumbling block that the devil would use with force and cunning and with which he would even violate the sacred number of the circle that Jesus had gathered about him as the firstfruits of his church. His heartfelt complaint is not only intended, therefore, to give voice to the painful certainty that he would have to pursue his way in the company of his betrayer but also to impress on his disciples that even their—as yet unshaken—loyalty to him would not save them from being sifted by Satan (cf. Lk. 22:31).

It is undoubtedly for that reason that the Evangelist places the story of these two core motifs from the tradition (Peter’s confession and Jesus’ foreknowledge of Judas’s betrayal) in the same context at this critical juncture in Jesus’ history. Accordingly, the added comment that Jesus’ reference was to Judas is not meant to stigmatize Judas by name¹⁸¹ or to inform the reader assumed to be unfamiliar with the tradition, but rather to picture to the church, in the concrete figure of Judas, the offense of the gospel of the cross in its permanent actuality and relevance, an offense that cannot be overcome from within the “flesh.” It can hardly be an accident that this grand chapter about the bread of life—at the same time the conclusion and summary of Jesus’ continuing miraculous work in word and deed in Galilee—ends with the reference to Judas—with the telling addition: “one of the Twelve.”

1. So, e.g., Schnackenburg.

2. At least if one follows most (and the most important) manuscripts.

3. Cf. J. Jeremias, Die Wiederentdeckung von Bethesda, 1949.

4. Actually the text only mentions a “sheep place.” Some scholars connect it with the following word: “Sheep pool,” following a reading in which “sheep” is not connected with a preposition and occurs in the nominative. In that case the pool took its name from the Sheep Gate, which in Jesus’ day and still now is a familiar gate in the northern part of Jerusalem, northeast of the temple square. But the pool also has another name, so we assume that “sheep” refers to the well-known gate.

5. There is a wide diversity of readings and opinions about the name of the pool. The reading “Bethesda” is ancient, perhaps supported by its meaning: “House of Mercy.” A stronger textual witness has “Bethzatha,” which is assumed to be identical with “Bezetha,” the name of a northern part of Jerusalem, which, it is assumed, gave its name to the pool. However, there is also an opinion that the name intended here is identical with one found in the Qumran writings in a reference to the same place, which is said to have led to the name Beth-eshda (see, e.g., Brown, Comm., in loc.).

6. The verb related to the third of these words occurs in Mk. 3:1. They are used of those who are unable to walk.

7. For that reason the passage does not lend itself to explanation—as is often attempted—by the introduction of all kinds of elements that the text itself does not contain (such as the paralytic’s desire to be healed, his “faith,” or Jesus’ “challenge” of that faith); see, e.g., C. H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, 1965, pp. 174ff. For a survey of a variety of older interpretations of vss. 1-9, see Haenchen, Comm. I, pp. 255-57.

8. ἔγειρε.

9. The word used here (κράβατος), as in Mk. 2:11, is more colloquial than the word used in the same connection in Matthew and Luke (κλίνη).

10. Cf. Haenchen, Comm., in his extended reflections on Jn. 5:1-30 (I, pp. 255-57).

11. Loisy spoke of the sabbath issue as an “accessory complication” and believed that the healing miracle had to be interpreted by itself apart from the sabbath issue (Comm., p. 393).

12. Cf. K. Bornhaüser, Das Johannesevangelium eine Missionschrift für Israel, 1928, pp. 34, 39ff.

13. Cf. Strack/Billerbeck II, pp. 459ff.

14. μηκέτι ἁμάρτανε, present imperfect: Do not continue what you are doing, in this case, sinning.

15. Schlatter, Comm., p. 145.

16. “The reader is clearly not required to pass judgment on the behaviour of the healed man; all interest in him ceases after v. 15” (Bultmann, Comm., p. 243).

17. Brown, Comm. I, p. 209.

18. See also J. L. Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, 1979², p. 71, who in keeping with his “two-level” theory goes much further. He sees in Jesus’ miracle the action of Christian healers in the later church, and in the reaction of the paralytic in ch. 5 and the blind man in ch. 9 he sees the different attitudes of their potential converts vis-à-vis the later (Jewish) authority, the Gerousia.

19. This indicates that not only Jesus’ command to the paralytic, but also Jesus’ attitude toward the sabbath manifest in the healing, prompted “the Jews” to act.

20. Cf. Bornhäuser, Johannesevangelium eine Missionschrift, p. 35.

21. Much has been written about this passage. See the discussion of the literature in F. J. Moloney, The Johannine Son of Man, 1978², pp. 71ff.

22. Lindars, Comm., p. 221, referring to articles by C. H. Dodd and P. Gächter; see also Brown, Comm. I, pp. 218f.

23. ὁμοίως does not mean “in the same manner” (imitation) but “also,” “likewise,” “in agreement with.”

24. “The μὴ ἀφʼ ἑαυτοῦ gives expression, not to his humility, but to his claim as the Revealer” (Bultmann, Comm., p. 249).

25. Cf. Bultmann, Comm., p. 250.

26. Ibid., p. 249.

27. Calvin, Comm. I, p. 125.

28. Bultmann, Comm., pp. 250-52.

29. See also my Het Woord is vlees geworden, 1979, p. 17.

30. One can undoubtedly appeal to Calvin for this, but not for the conclusion that Bultmann draws from it; see the comments below on 8:58.

31. M. de Jonge, Jesus: Stranger from Heaven and Son of God, 1977, p. 150: “In its ‘mythical’ discourse the Fourth Gospel is also dealing with the nature of the Son in his relationship with the Father”; see also de Jonge, p. 166.

32. So Bultmann: “because his origin is grounded in what he means for us” (Comm., p. 249).

33. Cf. Strack/Billerbeck II, pp. 641ff. Philo also devoted much thought to this question; see, e.g., C. H. Dodd, Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 1963, pp. 320ff.

34. Cf. the plural in vs. 20b: τούτων.

35. On this see at length S. Pancaro, The Law in the Fourth Gospel, 1975, pp. 158-169 and passim.

36. For the link between this miracle of healing and “the greater works,” see also W. Nicol, The Sēmeia in the Fourth Gospel, 1972, p. 117.

37. Calvin’s comments on Jn. 5:23 are of lasting importance and are also set in the context of the relationship between the church and Israel (Comm. I, p. 128): “All admit that we should worship God, and this sentiment, naturally inborn in us, has deep roots in our hearts, so that none dares absolutely to deny honour to God. Yet men’s minds fade away in seeking God out of the way. Hence so many pretended deities; hence so much perverse worship.” And concerning Israel: “Nor was the state of the Fathers under the Law different; for though they beheld Christ obscurely under shadows, God never revealed Himself without Christ. But now since Christ has been manifested in the flesh and appointed King over us, the whole world must bow to Him in order to obey God.”

38. The two clauses of vs. 24a constitute a hendiadys.

39. So Bultmann, Comm., pp. 260ff., in agreement with earlier writers (p. 262, n. 1). See also Moloney, Johannine Son of Man, p. 73, n. 27. Haenchen, Comm. I, p. 259, expresses himself even much more sharply. He speaks of a redactor with a totally different understanding of God from that of the Evangelist:

For this Father, whom Jesus, as the son of man, will make evident, has become unlike the Father proclaimed by the Evangelist. Jesus himself has become like the Jesus in the Sistine Chapel. Before him those condemned, those who have done evil, will be cast into hell. With this doctrine of judgment the moral demand has been inserted into the Gospel of John as what is really essential. And there arises a furtive struggle between the Johannine picture of Jesus and God and that of the redactor. The reader, as well as the learned exegete, will therefore easily become bewildered and will often not know how he or she is to forge a unity out of everything that nevertheless appears in this Gospel.

40. So, e.g., M. É. Boismard, “L’évolution du thème eschatologique dans les traditions johanniques,” Revue Biblique 68 (1961), pp. 514-18. See also the commentaries of Brown and Schnackenburg.

41. See also L. van Hartingsveld, Die Eschatologie des Johannesevangeliums. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Rudolf Bultmann, 1962.

42. So, e.g., Bauer, Comm., p. 38.

43. See C. K. Barrett, The Gospel of John and Judaism, 1975, pp. 73f., 91f.:

John contains apocalyptic with non-apocalyptic material. In this regard the gospel is very often oversimplified.… For him eschatology is realised in the present, but not so completely that the future is no longer of any significance.… Precisely the coexistence of both is important for Johannine Theology. To set out to dissolve this coexistence through source or redaction hypotheses is methodologically false.

It is not a matter of maintaining that any source or redaction hypothesis must be wrong.… I maintain only that the redactor was a theologian, not a fool.

44. LXX: καὶ ἐδóθη αὐτῷ ἐξουσία; cf. also Dn. 12:2 with vss. 28f. See also C. Colpe, TDNT VII, pp. 464f., who refers to the “plain use” of Dn. 12:2 in Jn 5:28f. (n. 441) and further remarks: “There is agreement even to the indefinite ἀνθρώπου” (n. 437), which also proves that the lack of an article in vs. 27b cannot be an indication, as some think, that “Son of man” here refers to Jesus’ humanity and not to the title from Daniel 7; see the extensive treatment in Moloney, Johannine Son of Man, pp. 80f.

45. A typical rabbinical expression; cf., e.g., 3:7.

46. The view advanced by Schulz (Comm., p. 91) that also in vss. 27-29, regardless of whether these verses are original in this context, one must presuppose “a tacit reinterpretation by John in the sense of 5:24f. and 11:25ff.” therefore not only fails to appreciate the clearly future-oriented thrust of these verses (cf. Colpe, TDNT VII, p. 465, n. 441) but also the meaning of the passage as a whole.

47. Cf. Strack/Billerbeck II, p. 466. In 8:17f. Jesus appeals to another legal rule according to which his own testimony concerning himself did have evidential validity, namely, in conjunction with that of others (the Father); see the comments there.

48. See the contrast between ἐγὼ δέ in vs. 34 and emphatic ὑμεῖς in vs. 33.

49. See also the precise analyses in Nicol, Sēmeia, pp. 117ff.

50. In that case the perfect means that it is the Father who bore witness and still bears witness to Jesus (by Jesus’ “works”).

51. For this view that there is a direct material connection between vs. 37b and Dt. 4:12, see the lengthy treatment of this text by Pancaro, in The Law in the Fourth Gospel, pp. 220-31; also P. Borgen in NTS 23 (1976), pp. 72f.

52. ὅτι in vs. 38 means something like “for,” “which is evident from the fact that.”

53. Some take this as an imperative. The word “for” that follows the indicative in vs. 40, however, makes this translation less likely. There is a somewhat divergent tradition of these verses in Papyrus Egerton. Some believe that the imperative would be more natural there.

54. Against this view (an anti-Jewish bias on the part of the “revelational sayings source”—so Bultmann, Comm., p. 268) see, e.g., Günter Reim, Studien zum alttestamentlichen Hintergrund des Johannesevangeliums, 1974, pp. 278ff.

55. οὐ λαμβάνω, probably to be taken as conative present: “I do not attempt to obtain.”

56. Literally “I know you that you …”; perhaps to be taken as a Semitic construction in which the subject of the subordinate clause becomes the object of the main clause.

57. πιστεῦσαι is probably to be taken inchoatively here.

58. τὴν δóξαν τὴν παρὰ μονοῦ θεοῦ.

59. Cf. Strack/Billerbeck II, p. 561.

60. As Pancaro argues at length in The Law in the Fourth Gospel, pp. 254ff.

61. “Believing Moses” (cf. Ex. 4:1-9, 27, 31) apparently means believing him as a witness to the coming Messiah (cf. vs. 39).

62. See also G. Schrenk, TDNT I, p. 765.

63. Cf. Schnackenburg: “What is written, being fixed, is easier to comprehend than the spoken Word” (Comm., II, p. 129).

64. Brown, Comm. I, pp. 236-44, here quoting p. 239; cf. p. 244. Lindars reaches similar conclusions (Comm., p. 236).

65. The two genitives, “of Galilee of Tiberias,” are difficult and led to all sorts of variations in the manuscripts. Matthew and Mark call it the Sea of Galilee, Luke speaks of the Lake of Gennesaret (5:1), and John refers in 21:1 to the Sea of Tiberias. Since Tiberias was founded by Herod Antipas, this last designation was from later than Jesus. It is apparently used in Jn. 6:1 to explain the older name, Sea of Galilee.

66. ἠκολούθει, imperfect.

67. Mk. 6:37 also names this amount, but as enough to buy the bread, while here it is considered inadequate for the same purpose. This is a clear illustration of how details can be fixed in tradition but function differently depending on the context.

68. It is striking that Andrew here—as though, by contrast with Philip, he were still unknown to the reader—is again introduced as “one of [Jesus’] disciples” and—as already in 1:40—as “the brother of Simon Peter,” who was, of course, well known. Apparently not all the details in the Gospel are carefully attuned to each other.

69. παιδάριον.

70. In 2 Kg. 4:43 the LXX has λειτοῦργος but in vs. 38 (and elsewhere) παιδάριον.

71. So, e.g., Reim, Studien zum alttestamentlichen Hintergrund des Johannesevangelium, p. 157: “an obvious allusion.”

72. This is said to be true specifically of the “signs source” (“S,” from sēmeia) from which John is supposed to have drawn his miracle stories. For this see Nicol, Sēmeia, pp. 89ff. In his opinion it cannot be accidental that

the kind of miracles which S describes agree with those of Elijah and Elisha: the multiplication of bread (2 Kgs. 4:42-4; cf. the multiplication of oil, 4:1-7); raising from the dead (1 Kgs. 17; 2 Kgs. 4—both concern a boy; cf. Jn. 4:46ff.); changing of bad water to good water (2 Kgs. 2:19-25—cf. changing water to wine); washing oneself to be healed (2 Kgs. 5:10—the closest parallel to Jn. 9:7, cf. Jn. 5:3).… If the kinds of miracles in S are paralleled by those of Kings, they agree nearly as much with those of Moses because Kings already shows many parallels to Moses.

See also the essay by J. Louis Martyn, “We Have Found Elia,” in his The Gospel of John in Christian History, 1979, pp. 13ff., according to which the Johannine Jesus resembles Elijah.

73. Nicol, who deals with all this in his analysis of the signs source, speaks of a typology “beneath the surface; it is the barely visible foundation of the whole Christology of S., namely the expectation that there would be a correspondence between the final salvation and the salvation of Israel of old, between the Messianic time and the Mosaic era—including the ‘Mosaic figure of Elijah.’ ”

74. τὰ περισσεύσαντα κλάσματα. So Brown, Comm. I, p. 234, appealing to Léon-Dufour.

75. Brown, Comm. I, pp. 246ff., with repeated reference to his extensive comparison of the Synoptic and Johannine versions of the multiplication of the loaves (see above).

76. Following C. F. D. Moule, “A Note on Didache IX 4,” JTS 6 (1955) pp. 240-43, in which Moule attempts to explain the Didache passage in terms of John 6. However, this would not constitute proof that, conversely, the passage in John 6 exhibits the features of the Eucharistic prayer. See also Lindars, Comm., p. 243, who endorses Moule’s argument but interprets the “gathering up” of the fragments as an allusion to Ex. 16:16 (the gathering of the manna).

77. On this see the longer discussion below.

78. On this material see de Jonge, Jesus: Stranger from Heaven and Son of God, chs. 3 and 4.

79. For this interpretation see W. A. Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and Johannine Christology, 1967, who regards Jn. 6:15 as the basis for understanding that in the christology of the Fourth Gospel the kingship of Christ was redefined in terms of the Mosaic “prophet” (p. 67). Against this entire view see de Jonge, Jesus: Stranger from Heaven and Son of God, pp. 51ff.; Nicol, Sēmeia, p. 88.

80. For the argumentation see Nicol, Sēmeia, pp. 84ff.

81. Some manuscripts have “darkness had fallen on them” (κατέλαβεν; cf. 1:5; 12:35), which accentuates the situation even more without implying any “deeper” meaning.

82. τε makes the addition emphatic.

83. περιπατοῦτα.

84. θεωροῦσιν, historical present (“a reflection of eyewitness traditions?” asks Brown, Comm. I, p. 252).

85. See, also in combination with “do not be afraid,” Gn. 26:24; Rv. 1:17. For the absolute meaning of the “I am” statements and the connection with texts like Is. 41:1; 43:10, etc., see at greater length the comments on 8:24.

86. So, e.g., Bultmann, Comm., p. 211; Nicol, Sēmeia, p. 59.

87. According to Moloney (Johannine Son of Man, p. 108), it is “difficult to explain the present position of the miracle story” (in vss. 16-21).

88. Although all sorts of historical questions remain unanswered. The continuation of the story (in Capernaum) is very different from what is in Matthew and Mark (cf. Mt. 14:34; Mk. 6:53 [in Gennesareth]). In addition, the embarkation of the people cannot possibly relate to all who ate the bread. The Evangelist moves directly to the discourse about the bread of life in the synagogue at Capernaum as the material sequel to the miracle of the loaves, without involving himself in questions that the transition from one situation to another (very different) situation would raise in the minds of readers concerned about historical sequence. The highly succinct, stylistically even deficient, transitional passage furnishes (even taking account of corruptions of the text) a certain insight into what he deemed important for his readers’ understanding of his Gospel.

89. Brown, Comm. I, p. 293, refers to a bibliography composed in 1935 by Gärtner and supplements it up to 1966; Moloney (Johannine Son of Man, pp. 89f.) “adapted and supplemented” it up to 1978. See also H. Leroy, “Rätsel und Mißverständnis,” Bonner Biblische Beiträge 30 (1968), pp. 108f.; H. Thyen, “Aus der Literatur zum Johannesevangelium,” Theologische Rundschau 43 (1978), pp. 328f.

90. So Lindars, Comm., p. 234. See also H. Schürmann, Ursprung und Gestalt, 1970, pp. 13ff. L. Schenke, “Die formale und gedankliche Struktur von Joh. 6,26-58,” BZ 24 (1980), concludes (p. 38): “The text in its present condition is a consciously constructed literary entity with a clearly conceived theological line of thought. It is not possible to divide it between two authors, each with a different theological objective.”

91. See also the introduction to ch. 5 above.

92. He already regards the transition from the feeding to the discourse as artificial, the dialogue in vss. 27ff. as originally related to another situation than that underlying vss. 1-25, and vss. 27-50a as in such “a state of disorder or at least of a very poor order” that it can only be explained “by suggesting that it is the work of an editor who, having found a text which for external reasons had been completely destroyed and so disordered, attempted himself to reconstruct the original order.” In his opinion, the original order was vss. 27, 34, 35, 30-33, 47-51a, 41-46, and 36-40.

93. Cf. also Dodd, Interpretation, p. 290; see the comments on ch. 5 above.

94. B. Gärtner, John 6 and the Jewish Passover, 1959.

95. A. Guilding, The Fourth Gospel and Jewish Worship, 1960.

96. Gärtner, John 6, pp. 25ff.

97. P. Borgen, Bread from Heaven: An Exegetical Study of the Concept of Man in the Gospel of John and the Writings of Philo (NovT Supplements 10), 1965; further defended and explained in idem, Logos Was the True Light, 1983, pp. 21-46.

98. See, e.g., the commentaries of Brown, Barrett, Lindars, and Schnackenburg. An overview of the continuing discussion can also be found in Moloney, Johannine Son of Man, pp. 94ff.

99. See also Borgen’s own rejection of an excessively strict application of the midrashic “pattern” in his later book, Logos Was the True Light, p. 35: “The Evangelist expressed the ideas in traditional forms, and had hardly any independent interest in form as such. Therefore, the forms were not applied in a mechanical way.”

100. For this, too, see Logos Was the True Light, pp. 24ff.

101. Cf. W. Weren in W. Beuken et al., Brood uit de hemel. Lijnen van Exodus 16 naar Johannes 6 tegen de achtergrond van de rabbijnse litteratuur, 1985, p. 45.

102. E.g., Weren, in Brood uit de hemel, p. 49. As far as I can tell, he leaves out of consideration the background of Borgen’s division but arrives, on the basis of his own “synchronic” structural analysis (cf. p. 60), at the following: vss. 25c-34; vss. 35-47; vss. 48-56. He points out the parallelism in vss. 35-47 and 48-58 and thus does justice to the distinctive character as well as the integrity of these passages.

103. Cf. de Jonge (Jesus: Stranger from Heaven and Son of God, p. 57): “Jesus’ reaction towards the ideas of the crowd in the following discourse is entirely negative. In that Chapter [6] not the similarities but the dissimilarities receive all emphasis.”

104. σημεῖον.

105. See also the analysis of this text in Nicol, Sēmeia, pp. 113f.

106. A rhetorical device by which, e.g., by posing an absolute contrast, the writer emphatically brings to the fore a specific aspect of the truth without intending thereby to reject every other consideration (e.g., Pr. 8:10a-b; Jl. 2:13; Ho. 6:6; Mt. 6:1). Obviously the verse here does not mean that one should not work for perishable food or that Jesus was indifferent to the material needs of people, especially of the poor. Conversely, Jn. 6:27 does furnish proof that the current tendency of many people to view Jesus’ kingdom above all from the vantage point of the material and social needs of people is far removed from the center of Jesus’ message.

107. Cf. 3:21; 9:4, a Semitic manner of speech (cf. Nu. 8:11); the reference is to human work, to that which God asks of a person.

108. Which still refers to the work that God requires; cf. vss. 27, 28.

109. R. Bergmeier, Glaube als Gabe nach Johannes, 1980, speaks of the “deliberately contaminated Scriptural citation from Ex. 16:4 ἄρτους ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ and 16:15 Οὗτος ὁ ἄρτος, ὃν ἔδωκεν κύριος ὑμῖν φαγεῖν” (p. 215). On the connection with Exodus 16 see specifically Beuken et al., Brood uit de hemel.

110. Cf., e.g., Strack/Billerbeck II, pp. 481ff.; Schlatter, Comm., p. 172:

The Galileans were not yielding to an arbitrary impulse when they asked Jesus whether he was crediting himself with feeding the people with manna. The same was expected of the Messiah in the eschaton in rabbinic writings. John shows himself exactly as knowledgeable here as when he says of the Jerusalem priests that they regarded their temple as irreplaceable, or of the Samaritan woman that she laid before Jesus the question concerning the right of her place of worship, or when he attributes to the people of Jerusalem the conviction that to think of divine sonship was ungodly arrogance.

For the positive connection between manna and the bread given by Jesus, see also W. Weren, “Jezus en de manna,” in Beuken et al., Brood uit de hemel, pp. 74ff. Weren, however, goes so far that little is left of the contrast emphatically made here by Jesus.

111. Cf. Bultmann, Comm., p. 228: “The emphatic τòν ἀληθινóν makes it clear that all earthly goods are mere appearances in relation to the revelation.” For the opposite and correct view see Weren, “Jezus en de manna.”

112. See also Strack/Billerbeck II, p. 482.

113. In Dt. 8:3 and Mt. 4:4 the point at issue is not—as is often thought—an antithesis between material and spiritual bread but between normal bread from the bakery and bread called into being by God’s word of power—in Dt. 8:3 the manna, in Mt. 4:4 the bread Jesus could create from the stones. The bread that God calls into being is also material and perishable (cf. Jn. 6:32, 49), as is the bread that Jesus has distributed. It did relieve the physical hunger of the five thousand. But in the subsequent discourse Jesus shows that one who stops there is concerned only about perishable food (however miraculously obtained) but has no part in the food that endures to eternal life. And in that respect the latter food is greater than the manna Moses gave to Israel.

Weren denies all this in his essay “Jezus en de manna.” He believes that the manna, no less than the bread Jesus gives, entails eternal life, namely “when, in accordance with its intent, it is linked with the laws God gave to Israel through Moses” (

114. Many interpreters believe that “who (which) comes down from heaven” should not be taken predicatively but understood attributively of the bread (“this is the bread of God that comes down from heaven”). Because both translations are grammatically possible, other interpreters also speak of “intentional ambiguity” as a possibility (cf., e.g., the comments on vs. 34); so, e.g., Brown, Dodd, and Lindars. But the attributive view labors under the disadvantages that vs. 33a would then be a repetition of what was already said in vs. 32 and that the “for” clause would not explain anything.

115. See n. 114.

116. Another proof, in my opinion, that the question-and-answer pattern of vss. 25ff. is not analogous to the questions and answers of the Passover meal; on this issue, see also Brown, Comm. I, pp. 266f.

117. ὁ ἄρτος τῆς ζῶης, like the “living bread” (ὁ ἄρτος ὁ ζῶν) in vs. 51 and the “living water” (i.e., life-giving water) in 4:10. For parallels in the history of religions, see the extensive material in Bultmann, Comm., pp. 222ff.; Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 44 (with special reference to the apocryphal Jewish writing Joseph and Asenath).

118. This is clear from the great emphasis resting on the “I,” as also from the entire context. See also

119. See the introductory comments on chs. 5 and 6, above.

120. The text of 6:36 is uncertain. The most important manuscripts have με; other important manuscripts omit με, perhaps with an eye to vs. 26. If one reads “see” without με and hence without an object, there remains a certain incongruency with vs. 26, which mentions “seeing the signs.” In light of vs. 40, however, the focus on “seeing” the person of Jesus corresponds to the Evangelist’s whole line of thought. Therefore, I opt for the reading most often followed and hear in it an echo of vs. 26.

121. “They misunderstand: the bread from heaven is not a gift that can be abstracted from the one sent by God, a gift that is given from time to time (πάντοτε), but is Jesus as the sent one himself.” So Schenke, “Formale und gedankliche Struktur von Joh. 6,26-58,” p. 32.

122. Cf. J. P. Miranda, Der Vater, der mich gesandt hat, 1972, p. 124:

The relationship of God to Jesus is described as a transfer of power, in connection with which the objects of divine giving are specified in detail: God’s name (Jn. 17:11), the δóξα (17:22, 24), the ἐξουσία πάσης σαρκóς (17:2), ζωὴν ἔχειν ἐν ἑαυτοῦ (5:26), the works or work (5:36; 17:4), the words (17:8), the κρίσις or ἐξουσία for κρίσις (5:22, 27), believers (6:37, 39; 10:29; 17:2, 6, 9, 12, 24; 18:9), the cup (18:11), and, more simply, everything (3:35; 13:3; 17:7) or all he asks (11:22). But these objects are not external gifts but expressions of the unity and fellowship of the Father with the Son.

123. Literally “cast out,” in the sense of “not recognize as his own,” “eject from his fellowship.”

124. The use of the name here is proof that Ίουδαῖοι does not refer in the Fourth Gospel just to “Judeans,” as M. Lowe argues in “Who Were the Ίουδαῖοι?” NovT 18 (1976), pp. 101ff. On this matter see at length J. Ashton, “The Identity and Function of the ΙΟΥΔΑΙΟΙ in the Fourth Gospel,” NovT 27 (1985), pp. 40ff.

125. Cf. also Weren, “Jezus en de manna,” p. 90.

126. εἵλκυσά σε εἰς οἰκτίρημα, Jr. 38(31):3 LXX; see also Schlatter, Comm., on Jn. 6:44.

127. ἐν τοῖς προφήταις. Although the words refer to only one specific text (Is. 54:13), the reference to “the prophets” indicates that the content of the pronouncement is true of the prophets in general: “So prophecy speaks of the great future” (cf. Ac. 8:42).

128. Comm., p. 231.

129. ὁ ἀκούσας παρὰ τοῦ πατρóς, etc.—not “listen to the Father” (as Bultmann explains it) but “hear and learn from the Father” (as Bergmeier correctly has it: Glaube als Gabe nach Johannes, p. 216). Bultmann does acknowledge that “ἀκούσας is qualified by μαθών as the true hearer as opposed to the mere casual listener” (cf. 5:25). But is “true hearing” something that “any person” can do?

130. Bultmann, too, acknowledges this: “So if faith is such a surrender of one’s own self-assertion, then the believer can understand his faith not as the accomplishment of his own purposeful act, but only as God’s working upon him.” So Theology of the New Testament II (1953), p. 23; see also p. 77:

Admittedly, [the decision of faith] is wrought by God, but not as if the working of God took place before faith or, so to speak, behind it; rather, God’s working takes place exactly in it. For when the Revelation encounters faith, the reply which faith makes to the Revelation’s question feels itself to have been wrought by the question itself. In making its decision, faith understands itself as a gift. The disciples did not choose Jesus; he chose them (15:16).

131. See also de Jonge, Jesus: Stranger from Heaven and Son of God, pp. 17ff.; 151ff.

132. ὁ ὥν παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ.

133. If anywhere, the basic principle of structural-analytic exegesis applies here, namely that of the synchronic approach: We should explain the text from within its own semantic frame of reference (here that of the bread discourse) and not derive its meaning (diachronically) from an externally adduced semantic context (sacramental language). Cf., e.g., W. S. Vorster, “De structuuranalyse,” in Inleiding tot de studie van het Nieuwe Testament, ed. A. F. J. Klijn, 1982, pp. 127ff.

134. The last five words come somewhat lamely at the end. There are textual variants that obviously correct this by putting the words earlier, where one should expect them (after “give”; cf. RSV), or by inserting a second relative clause (“that I will give”) after “flesh.” But as the text now reads, all the emphasis lies on “is my flesh.” That is the intent. What follows is a further qualification alluding to vs. 33. One might place a semicolon after flesh and then continue the sentence with “and that for the life of the world.”

135. For more extensive overviews see, e.g., Moloney, Johannine Son of Man, pp. 93ff., 98ff.; Brown, Comm. I, p. 272. For a clear and succinct overview, see Schnackenburg, Comm. II, pp. 56ff.; also his lengthier discussion “Changing Interpretations of the Bread Discourse,” Comm. II, pp. 65-69.

136. O. Cullmann, Early Christian Worship, 1953; and especially idem, Les Sacraments dans l’Évangile johannique, 1951. See also Bauer, Comm.; Lightfoot, Comm.

137. So Bultmann, Comm., pp. 234ff.

138. Cf. Brown, Comm. I, p. 286.

139. So, e.g., Strathmann, Comm., p. 126.

140. So de Jonge, Jesus: Stranger from Heaven and Son of God, p. 208.

141. So Borgen, Bread from Heaven, p. 166.

142. So Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 61.

143. See, e.g., Moloney, Johannine Son of Man, pp. 103ff., who speaks of “two levels” (p. 106).

144. “Neque enim de Coena habetur concio, sed de perpetua communicatione, quae extra Coenae usum nobis constat.” Cf. Calvin, Comm. I, p. 169.

145. Comm. I, p. 170.

146. See, e.g., Grosheide, Comm. I, pp. 464f.; Godet, Comm. Materially these authors agree with Augustine’s view (already commended by Calvin) that John 6 can only be applied to the Lord’s Supper indirectly. Godet (II, 536): “It must not be said, then, that the discourse alludes to the Holy Supper; but it does have to be said that both the Holy Supper and the discourse refer to one and the same divine reality, expressed here by a metaphor and there by an emblem.”

147. See, e.g., H. Schürmann, “John VI 51c—ein Schlüssel zur großen johanneïschen Brotrede,” BZ 11 (1958); J. D. G. Dunn, “John VI—A Eucharistic Discourse?” NTS 17 (1971), pp. 328ff.; W. Weren, “Structuur en samenhang in Johannes 6,” in Beuken et al., Brood uit de hemel, pp. 44ff.

148. As Schnackenburg believes. He speaks of a “discernible change in the wording” related to “the reception of the Eucharist” (Comm. II, pp. 54ff.).

149. Cf. Bultmann: “If this flesh is described as the flesh which was given for the life of the world, clearly this has Jesus’ submission unto death in mind, which in the early Christian view was a death ὑπέρ …” (Comm., pp. 234f.).

150. For this “incarnational” sense of σάρξ in vss. 51ff. see also E. Schweizer, TDNT VII, p. 140 (though he also follows the sacramental interpretation!). See also Weren, “Structuur en samenhang in Johannes 6,” p. 47; Dunn, “John VI—A Eucharistic Discourse?” p. 331.

151. Bultmann, who regards vss. 51c-58 as a later sacramentalist addition, believes that in fact this is the intent of the later redactor who was responsible for this addition. Hence he speaks of the “externalizing” of the concept of skandalon. “The idea of the sacrament is not as such a skandalon and cannot be so. By this the real skandalon was made into a ‘literary motif.’ ” “The hearers cannot understand that Jesus is speaking of the Lord’s Supper” (Comm., p. 237). This criticism would be entirely on target if the reference here was to a sacramental eating and drinking!

152. This is the view not only of traditional Roman Catholic exegetes but also of Bultmann: “Jesus’ reply (v. 53) … unmistakably refers to the Lord’s Supper, since now the drinking of the blood is added to the eating of the flesh” (Comm., p. 235).

153. So Brown, Comm. I, p. 284.

154. As is apparently assumed by most adherents of the sacramental view; cf. Bultmann, who says the identity of Jesus with the Son of man “was obviously assumed without further thought” (Comm., p. 125).

155. Some scholars assume that the title “Son of man” comes from the eucharistic liturgy of the Johannine community (e.g., Bultmann, Comm., p. 235), but evidence is lacking, as Schnackenburg acknowledges (Comm. II, p. 454, n. 174).

156. This is undoubtedly the reason why this “hard” expression (“eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man”) occurs nowhere as a sacramental expression. Schnackenburg asks, from within his eucharistic interpretation (Comm. II, p. 61), “Why the sharp wording …?” He then looks for an explanation in John’s attack on a Gnostic-docetic group that rejected the eucharist. I find this interpretation forced.

157. Comm., p. 182.

158. Comm., p. 126.

159. Comm. II, p. 61.

160. Comm., pp. 235f.

161. R. E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple, 1979, pp. 78f.

162. What Calvin in his comments on 6:53 calls the “perpetua fidei manducatio,” which “extra Coenae usum nobis constat.” Cf. Comm. I, p. 169.

163. One is struck by the use of τρώγειν for eating; the same word occurs in vss. 54, 56f. in alternation with the more general φαγεῖν, which occurs five times in vss. 49-53 (in John only there and in 13:18). τρώγειν is a very “realistic” word for eating and is therefore used in the more vulgar sense of “biting,” “chewing,” and the like. Some interpreters believe that it is precisely for this reason that it is used for the physical eating of the eucharist (so, e.g., L. Goppelt, TDNT VIII, p. 237; cf. also C. Spicq, NTS 26 [1980], p. 416: the word is used “to insist on the realism of the eating”; it has a nuance of “savoring, appreciating” food, a nuance that “St. John has retained for the Eucharist”). But the idea that such a more or less colloquial word should function in John 6 specifically as liturgical language seems most implausible (“Never, until St. John, was τρώγειν utilized in a religious text”—so even Spicq). This realism seems rather to belong to the “hard” language of “eating and drinking Jesus’ body and blood.” But it remains an open question whether one has to ascribe a deeper significance to the use of τρώγειν in place of φαγεῖν.

164. Cf., e.g., 5:38 (of the Word of God); 6:27 (of the food that abides); 15:4, 7 (of remaining in Jesus); 8:31 (of remaining in his word); 15:9, 10 (in his love); 15:4, 5 (of Jesus in his own); 14:10 (of the Father in the Son); 14:17 (of the Spirit’s indwelling of the disciples).

165. As is also evident from present tense ὁ τρώγων … καὶ πίνων in vss. 54, 55, 57, 58.

166. Called “aposiopesis,” i.e., omission of the apodosis. The protasis ἐὰν οὖν θεωρήτε expresses a potential condition (see BDF §§373.1; 483).

167. So BDF: “Would you then still take offense?” (§482).

168. οὖν is inferential.

169. ἐάν designates that which, given the circumstances, may be expected, what will eventually occur (cf. BDF §373).

170. For this interpretation of vss. 63f. see also I. de Potterie, “L’Esprit Saint dans l’Évangile de Jean,” NTS 18 (1972), p. 449.

171. E.g., Dunn, “John VI—A Eucharistic Discourse?” p. 338:

However essential was the incarnation to the work of redemption, for John it is not merely Jesus descended who gives life, merely as σάρξ, but rather as also ascended, when he gives himself through and in the Spirit. It is in the believing reception of the Spirit of Christ, the ἄλλος παρακλήτος, that we eat the flesh and drink the blood of the incarnate Christ.

Weren now argues along the same lines (“Structuur en samenhang in Johannes 6,” p. 60):

Only when the Son of man has ascended can he follow through on what he promised in the dialogue, namely, giving his flesh to eat for the life of the world. By the gift of the Spirit the believer can participate in that life. In that sense the flesh, considered by itself, is of no use.

172. Bornkamm asserts this and, following him, also such an influential interpreter as Brown (Comm. I, pp. 299-302).

173. ἀπερχέσθαι εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω, “go away, leave.”

174. περιπατεῖν, here in the more general sense of “spend time with,” “go about with.”

175. The question that begins with μή expects a negative answer: “Certainly you do not also want to go away?”

176. In some manuscripts certain elements from the Synoptic tradition of Peter’s confession also occur in John, presumably by adoption.

177. Note the double perfect: “We have believed and have acknowledged,” a hendiadys (cf. Is. 43:10f.).

178. Bultmann, Comm., p. 448.

179. “Holy” is above all a term for what belongs to the divine sphere and to the service of God, that which is consecrated to God. Jesus is also described as the Holy One in 1 Jn. 2:20; Ac. 3:14; 4:27, 30 (“thy holy servant”); Rv. 3:7 and as “the Holy One of God” in Mk. 1:24; Lk. 4:34.

180. Others regard the fact that Peter’s confession is not followed here, as in Matthew, by Jesus’ pronouncement about Peter’s special position in relation to the coming church (Mt. 16:18, 19) as a Johannine depreciation of the role ascribed to Peter in the Synoptic Gospels (see A. H. Maynard, “Peter in the Fourth Gospel,” NTS 30 [1984], p. 543). That depreciation is also said to be discernible in the name, “Holy One of God,” that Peter ascribes to Jesus, the same name with which the demons address Jesus in Mk. 1:24; Lk. 4:34! This, then, is the converse of the suggestion that John transferred the role of Satan from Peter to Judas. Obviously, the Evangelists are occupied with something other than such assigning of roles.

181. The name of Judas’s father, Simon, is only reported in the Fourth Gospel, here and in 13:2, 26. This Simon is called, here and in ch. 13, “the Iscariot,” a surname given in 12:4, as in the Synoptics, to Judas himself, which has occasioned the many changes in the manuscripts at this point. The meaning of “the Iscariot” is uncertain but is often interpreted as “the man from Kerioth,” i.e., from the town in southern Judea called Kerioth Herzon. However, there are many other explanations, none of which has led to a consensus (see, e.g., Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 78).

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