John 6 (new material added)

John 6:1-15

• 6:2—Notice that the crowds are following Jesus “because they saw the signs he was doing for the sick.”
  a. 6:4—Although “the Passover…was near,” the crowds are out in the wilderness wandering after Jesus.
  b. Dodd suggests that John is hinting at “the eucharistic significance of the narrative which follows” (p. 333).
  c. 6:14; cf. Deut. 18:15-19—What is the response from the crowd to the sign?

John 6:16-25

• The Jewish people were not necessarily sea-savvy people, often associating the “sea” with the existence of Chaos.
  a. God’s power over the sea was a common theme in Psalms (e.g., 74:13, 93:3-4, 104:25).
  b. 6:20—A further connection is made between this event and the Passover/ Exodus in Jesus walking on water, a sign that can only be interpreted “by the divine name ‘I am’” (Brown, 1966, p. 255).

John 6:26-59

• 6:26—Jesus rebukes the crowd because they are only interested in being fed. They are not even interested in signs at this point.
  a. Has God ever sent His best gifts in the “wrong” package?
  b. There was an expectation that the Messiah would provide a never-ending supply of bread (Apocalypse of Baruch 29:8; Cullmann, 1978, p. 96-97).
  c. They have traded their “sign faith” for “crass materialism” (Morris, p. 317).
• 6:33—Jesus not only reveals who God is but is, in fact, the revealed God in our presence.
  a. 6:27 and 53—The “Son of Man” is “the exalted Lord of the Church, who in the present gives the bread of life in the sacrament of the eucharist” (Cullmann, 1963, p. 186).
  b. The bread, then, serves as a symbol of the redemptive and satisfying nature of our relationship with God (Cullmann, 1978, p. 95).
• John describes the institution of the Eucharist in spiritual terms with this story.
  a. In Matthew and Mark, the Eucharist is a re-enactment of the Cross.
  b. In Luke, the Eucharist is a fellowship meal in which disciples enter into a relationship with Jesus.
  c. In John, the Eucharist is a continuation of the Incarnation. When we partake of Jesus’ body and blood, He becomes present with us and in us.

John 6:60-71

• 6:60-65—Jesus “wants to ‘scandalize’ his hearers so that “they will attend to what is important” about their faith (Cullmann, 1978, p. 100).
• The Ascension directly relates to the Eucharist because it means that the Spirit is now at work among the Church as we watch and wait for Christ’s return (Talbert, p. 146).

"I AM" Statements

• In His use of “I AM” (Greek, ego eimi), Jesus connects Himself to God
  a. Exodus 3:13-15—Moses is to say that the “I AM that I AM” sent him to Israel.
  b. Each use of ego eimi “brings home an important aspect of the person and the ministry of Jesus” (Morris, p. 323-324).
  c. In using ego eimi, Jesus is demanding that we recognize Him as God in the flesh and respond to Him as such. Kysar writes that “to assert the divinity of the founder of his faith. . .[John] uses it to claim that, when Christ speaks, it is God who speaks. . . .The words of Christ are God’s words. The actions of Christ are God’s actions. The human response to Christ is the response to God” (p. 44).

1. 6:35—“I am the bread of life.”
2. 8:12–“I am the light of the world.”
3. 10:9—“I am the door.”
4. 10:11-14–“I am the good shepherd.”
5. 11:25–“I am the resurrection, and the life.”
6. 14:6–“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
7. 15:1–“I am the vine.”

Application Questions

• How would we look if our physical condition matched our spiritual condition?
• Where would you be if you had not accepted Christ into your life?
• What would become of your life if you gave up your relationship with God?
• Have there been a time when you have felt God’s presence in your life during a crisis? Have there been a time you felt that God was not with you?

References

Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, I-XII, Anchor Bible 29 (New York: Doubleday, 1966).

Oscar Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, rev. ed., New Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963).

Oscar Cullmann, Early Christian Worship, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978).

C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953).

Robert Kysar, John, the Maverick Gospel (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1976).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2004).