The People Want A Further Sign
THE PEOPLE WANT A FURTHER SIGN
JOHN 6:25-34
Jesus points to himself as the only evidence people need, and the only One who can truly satisfy.
There now follows a long discourse of Jesus with the Jews about the meaning of the sign which he has performed. This is similar to the discourse in 8:12-59 concerning the Light of the World and related themes which precedes the healing of the blind man in chapter 9. In each of these dialogues there is an “I am” saying of Jesus and a failure by the Jews to understand his meaning.
A query as to when he had come across the lake is met by a rebuke to those who had found him, on the grounds that they wanted him for the wrong reason—merely as a purveyor of bread for the hungry. He had already rejected this as an adequate Messianic programme (Matthew 4:2-4). Like water (4:13f.), food is a sign of spiritual sustenance. It must be worked for, yet paradoxically it is the gift of God. Work of this kind is therefore not an external striving but faith in the Son.
The people then want a further sign, as if the feeding were not enough for them. (No one depending on seeing wonders will ever be satisfied. Paradoxically, however, the greater the objective proof supplied, the less is the demand for the faith which Christ requires.) Their ancestors had been fed with manna in the wilderness. A repetition of this was expected to be one of the marks of the Messianic age. Jesus reminds them that the source of the manna was not Moses but God, and that the manna was not the genuine bread from heaven. This was to be sought, not in anything temporary and corruptible, but in something of heavenly origin which could bring life to the whole world. This sounded so good that they wanted to have it always available to themselves (cf. 4:15). The mystery is still hidden from them.
Notes 6:26: “saw signs”—they did see the actions but not their significance. 6:30: they depend on physical sight, but the physical sight which they have already had has not turned into spiritual sight. 6:31: the Christian manna is referred to in Revelation 2:17 and may be alluded to in the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:11).