《Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures – John (Ch. 4~Ch. 8》(Johann P. Lange) 04 Chapter 4

As it is written, He gave them bread from heaven. ( Exodus 16:4; Psalm 78:24; Psalm 105:40). Meyer: The Jews considered the manna the greatest of miracles.^[FN52] As Moses was the type of the Messiah (Schöttgen, Horæ Talm, II, p475), a new manna was expected from the Messiah Himself: “Redemptor prior descendere fecit pro iis Manna; sic et redemptor posterior descender faciet Manna.” Midras Coheleth. Fol86, 4. (Lightfoot, Schöttgen, Wetstein.)

The manna (מָן), which miraculously furnished the Israelites in the Arabian desert [for forty years] the means of support, Exodus 16; Numbers 11, etc, fell during the night, and in the morning lay as dew upon the earth, Exodus 16:14, in small grains (like coriander-seed, Exodus 16:31), sweet, like honey, to the taste. It had to be gathered [every day except the Sabbath] before the sun rose, or it melted, John 6:21. “The quantity divided daily to each person, Exodus 16:16, Thenius (Althebräische Masse) estimates at somewhat over two Dresden quarts” [about three English quarts.—P. S.]. On the well-known oriental (medicinal) manna of natural history, see Winer, sub v This appears even in southern Europe on various trees and shrubs; then in the east (manna-ash, oriental oak, especially the sweet-thorn), likewise tarfa-bush; abundant in Arabia, particularly in the vicinity of Sinai. A resinous exudation, resembling sugar, appearing sometimes spontaneously, sometimes through incisions made by insects or by men; appearing specifically on leaves and twigs. Several travellers assure us that in the east the manna falls as dew from the air. Even in this case a vegetable origin must be presumed. Our idea of the miraculous manna must be formed after the analogy of the Egyptian plagues: A natural phenomenon miraculously increased in an extraordinary manner by the power of God for a special purpose.^[FN53] At present scarcely six hundred-weight are gathered on the peninsula of Petræa in the most favorable years.—According to Chrysostom and others the manna came from the atmosphere, and so from just below the real heaven.

John 6:32. It is not Moses [οὐ before Μωυσῆς] that gave you the bread from heaven.—Introduced with a: Verily, verily. Not questioning the miraculousness of the manna (Paulus), but denying that the manna of Moses was from the real heaven, and was real manna. The question is not of a manna in an ideal sense, but of the real, true manna. Tholuck: “The negation is to be taken not absolutely, but only relatively.” It is relative, of course, considering the affinity of the symbol to the substance; but it is also absolute considering the infinite difference between them. According to Meyer the words “from heaven” in both cases (and in John 6:31) relate not to the bread (for then the phrase would be τὸν ἐκ τ. οὐρ.), but to δέδωκεν and δίδωσιν; and “in like manner in Exodus 16:4, מִן הַשָׁמַיִם belongs not to לֶחֶם, but to מַמְטִיר.” But we must not forget that the nature of the bread is described with the source of it: Bread of heaven, Psalm 78:24; Psalm 105:40. Just on account of the former of these two passages, to which the words before us refer, and where the Septuagint has ἄρτου οὐρανοῦ, Tholuck, not without reason, prefers the usual interpretation.

[My Father giveth you; δίδωσιν, now and always, opposed to δέδωκεν, which is said of Moses. Bengel: Jam aderat panis, John 6:33.—P. S.] The true bread from heaven.—[ἀληθινός, genuine, veritable, essential, as opposed to derived, borrowed, imperfect, while ἀληθής, true, is opposed to false. Comp. note on John 1:9, p66.—P. S.] Exactly parallel with the true light ( John 1:9); the true vine ( John 15:1); and to the same class of expressions: the true well of water, the true medicinal fountain, the true shepherd, etc, substantially belong.

John 6:33. For the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven.—The decisive declaration by way of a description of the bread of God; ὁ καταβαίνων referring to ἄρτος, not to Christ (against Paulus, Olshausen).^[FN54] Without this bread there is no substantial life, and no substantial nourishment of life. [Unto the world, i.e, all mankind; in opposition to the Jewish particularism which boasted in the manna as a national miracle. Bengel: Non modo uni populo, uni ætati, ut manna cibavit unum populum unius ætatis.—P. S.]

John 6:34. Lord, evermore give us this bread.—Comp. the request of the woman in John 4:15. The people presume that Christ is the agent of the Father’s gift. Interpretations: 1. Dim suspicion of the higher gift [perhaps the heavenly manna which, according to the Rabbis, is prepared for the just in heaven; comp. Revelation 2:17] (Lücke, Tholuck, and others). 2. They think the bread something material, separate from Christ (De Wette, Meyer, [Godet]). And in any case their prayer is more decidedly sensuous and chiliastically perverted, than the prayer of the woman of Samaria. [Some take the prayer as an irony based on incredulity as to the possibility of such bread. Not warranted.—P. S.]

John 6:35. I [Ἐγώ] am the bread of life.—[Transition from the indirect to the direct form of speech, as in John 6:30, and a categoric answer to the request of the Jews: “Give us this bread,” together with the indication of the way how to get it. Here is this bread before you, and all you have to do is to come unto Me. I am the bread, and faith is the work or the means of getting it.—P. S.] Most emphatic and decisive assertion. Still stronger than that in John 4:26, since it was more open to contradiction; though here it is not the profession of Himself as the Messiah by name. (Philo, Allegor. legis, lib. III.: λόγος θεοῦ ψυχῆς τροφή)—He that cometh to me.—Is willing to believe, and uses the means of faith that he may believe. Conversion in its Christian aspect. Not, as Meyer makes it, only a different phrase for πιστεύων.^[FN55] According to Meyer the expression: “Shall never thirst,” is a confusion of the figure, and anticipates the drinking of the blood of Christ, which follows. But it is rather an introduction to Christ’s further declaration of Himself. As faith is developed, it brings, besides the importation and sustenance of the spiritual life, the satisfaction also of having drunk. It is less natural to make this addition, with Lücke [and Alford], a description of the excellence of the heavenly bread over the manna [which was no sooner given, than the people began to be tormented with thirst and murmured against Moses, Exodus 17:1 ff.—P. S.]

[The two καί are correlative and bring out the glaring contrast of the two facts of even seeing the Son of God in His glory, and yet not believing in Him.—P. S.]

John 6:37. All that the Father giveth me.^[FN57]—As to the connection: The judgment just uttered is true of the body of those who were before Him. It is not intended to exclude the thought that there were some among them, whom the Father had given to Him. It Isaiah, therefore, not in absolute antithesis to what precedes (as Meyer makes it). All. Neuter. The strongest expression of totality, as in John 3:6, [totam quasi massam, as Bengel has it; comp. also John 17:2, where πᾶν is likewise used of persons in this emphatic sense of totality.—P. S.]^[FN58] That the Father giveth me. [The same as whom the Father draws, John 6:44.—P. S.] Not only the gratia præveniens, operating through nature and history, conscience and law, (comp. John 6:44), but also the effectual call to salvation—the gratia convertens—itself, is the work of the Father. The conversion, the coming to Jesus, is the answer to the call. Tholuck: It runs through the Gospel of John as a fundamental view, that all attraction towards Christ presupposes an affinity in the person for Christ, and then this affinity is the operation of the Father; and so here the un-susceptibility of the people is traced to this want of inward affinity. The phrase δίδοσθαι παρὰ τοῦ πατρός is also in John 10:29; John 17:2; John 17:6; comp. in the Old Testament, Isaiah 8:18 : “I and the children whom the Lord hath given me.” The Predestinarians refer this passage to the eternal election [Augustine, Beza], the Arminians to the gratia generalis, the ability to believe [Grotius: pietatis studium], the Socinians to the probitas, natural honesty and love of truth, etc. We consider that in the “giveth” the three elements of election, predestination (fore-ordination), and calling are combined, Romans 8:29. But undoubtedly fore-ordination is very especially intended. [Shall come unto me, πρὸς ἐμὲ ῆξει. By an act of faith. Comp. the following τὸν ἐρχόμενον. Godet distinguishes ἥξει from ἐλεύσεται, and explains it: will arrive at Me, will not suffer shipwreck, but infallibly attain the goal. He calls the usual interpretation tautological, in as much as the gift consists in the coming, but this is not correct; the δίδωσι is the act of God, and the ἔρχεσθαι the act of Prayer of Manasseh, i.e, faith in actual motion towards Christ.—P. S.]

And him that cometh to me, I Will in no wise cast out.—Every one who comes to Him is welcome. The only criterion is the coming or the not coming; no matter what the previous condition or guiltiness; the coming bespeaks the will of the Father, which it is the office of Christ to fulfil. [Οὐ μὴ ἐκβάλω ἐξω does not refer to Christ’s office as Judge at the resurrection, but to the present order of grace, and is a litotes, i.e, it expresses in a negative form more strongly the readiness of Christ to receive with open arms of love every one that comes to Him.—P. S.]

John 6:38. For I came down from heaven, etc.—Expressing the complete condescension and humiliation in the estate of the Redeemer. But how could His will be different from the Father’s? The ideal will of the Son of Prayer of Manasseh, in and Of itself, must continually press towards the perfecting of the world and of life, and therefore legitimately lead to judgment. But in the spirit of redemption Christ continually directs this current of rightful judgment by the counsel of that redemption which is in operation till the end of the world; and this is His humiliation to the death of the cross, and this His patience, in the majesty of His exaltation.

John 6:39. And this is the will of him that sent me [according to the correct reading instead of the Father’s will] that of all which he hath given me.—The decree of redemption. Hence the perfect: Which He hath given me. Spoken not from a point of view in the future (as Meyer says); nor with reference to election, but with with reference to the perseverance of the divine purpose of salvation, to which the perseverance of the patience of Christ and the perseverance of believers correspond (see Romans 8:29 ff.). I should lose nothing.—Let nothing be lost by breaking off before the final decision of persistent unbelief in every case. But should raise it up.—Evidently meaning the resurrection to life. The Son is not only to continue, but to carry to its blessed consummation the work of resurrection. It is not, therefore, the day of death (Reuss),^[FN59] nor specifically the first resurrection (Meyer), which is intended. The last day, ἐσχάτη ἡμέρα.—The period of judgment and resurrection from the second coming of Christ to the general resurrection, Revelation 20.

[The resurrection of the body is the culmination of the redeeming work beyond which there is no more danger. Bengel: Hic finis Esther, ultra quem periculum nullum. Citeriora omnia præstat Salvator. This “blessed refrain,” as Meyer calls it, is three times repeated, John 6:40; John 6:44; John 6:54; comp. John 10:28; John 17:12; John 18:9. What stronger assurance of final resurrection to life everlasting can the believer have than this solemnly repeated assurance from the unerring mouth of the Saviour: “I shall raise him up on the last day.” But true faith is no carnal confidence, it is always united with true humility. The more we trust in Christ, the less we trust in ourselves. All is safe if we look to Christ, all is lost, if we look to ourselves alone. Christians should pray as if all depended upon God, and watch and work as if all depended upon themselves.—P. S.]

John 6:40. That every one that seeth the Son.—A stronger putting of the gracious will of God in its final intent. Hence again naming the Son in the third person. “What John said to his disciples, Jesus now says openly to the Jews: Faith in the Son has everlasting life. Who the Son Isaiah, He gives them to know by declaring that He will raise up these believers.

John 6:41. The Jews therefore murmured at him.—A new section of the affair, occasioned by the Jews’ taking decisive offence at the preceding discourse. The οὖν is again very definitive. The verb γογγύζω, of itself, denotes neither, on the one hand, a whispering, nor, on the other, a grumbling or fault-finding; but the murmuring is here the expression of fault-finding, and is made by the context (“among yourselves,” and by the antagonism (“at Him”) synonymous with it.—The Jews. In the ὄχλος itself the Jewish element was aroused (De Wette); but no doubt the Pharisaic members of that synagogue are here especially concerned; and even Judas, whose very name is Jew, here seems to have already become soured (see John 6:64).

The bread which came down from heaven.—This declaration transcended their idea of the Messiah; and that in it which, unconsciously, most offended them was its offer of a suffering or self-sacrificing Messiah. Hence the Lord afterwards brought this out with special prominence. But they seized the declaration in another aspect. When, without directly claiming it, He indicated His divine sonship by saying that He came down from heaven, they considered Him as contradicting His known origin. A sensuous, narrow, literalistic apprehension.

John 6:42. Is not this Jesus.—The οὖτος, primarily, strongly demonstrative. The same person, of whom we know that He sprang from Nazareth and rose to be a Rabbi, pretends to have come down from heaven. This contrast and the skepticism of the people add a contemptuous tone to the pronoun. The son of Joseph.—These words do not imply that both the parents were still living (Meyer), but that the people considered both (whom they once knew) to be His parents. Of Joseph, whom the tradition represents as advanced in years at the time of his marriage to Mary, we have no trace in the Gospels after the childhood of Jesus (comp. Matthew 13:55). [John introduces here the Jews as speaking from their own stand-point. They, of course, knew nothing of the mystery of the supernatural conception, and would not have appreciated it, if Jesus had corrected them. This was a truth for the initiated, and was not revealed even to the disciples before they were fully convinced that Christ was the Son of God.—P. S.]

John 6:43. Murmur not among yourselves.—Jesus intended not to draw out their thoughts, but goes on to expose their defect.

John 6:44. No man can come to me.^[FN60]—Here: reach Me; in particular: reach an understanding of My nature, apprehend the Spirit in the flesh, Deity in humanity, the Son of God in the Nazarene. Except the Father draw him.—Ἑλκύειν denotes all sorts of drawing, from violence to persuasion or invitation. But persons can be drawn only according to the laws of personal life. Hence this is not to be taken in a high predestinarian sense (Calvin: It is false and impious to say non nisi volentes trahi;^[FN61] Beza: Volumus, quia datum Esther, ut velimus; Aretius: Hic ostendit Christus veram causam murmuris esse quod non sint electi). Yet on the other hand the force of the added clause, denoting a figurative, vital constraint, subduing by the bias of want, of desire, of hope, of mind, must not be abated. The drawing of the Father is the point at which election and fore-ordination become calling (the vocatio efficax), represented as entirely the work of the Father. Meyer: “The ἑλκύειν is the mode of the διδόναι, an internal pressing and leading to Christ by the operation of divine grace ( Jeremiah 30:3, Sept.), though not impairing human freedom.” The element of calling is added through the word of Christ. Hence: The Father who sent Me. As sent of the Father, He executes the Father’s work and word. The congruence of the objective work of salvation and the subjective operation of salvation in the individual.

[Ἑλκύειν (or ἕλκω, fut. ἕλξω, which is preferred to έλκύσω by the Attic writers), to draw, to drag, to force, almost always implies force or violence, as when it is used of wrestling, bending the bow, stretching the sail, or when a net is drawn to the land, a ship into the sea, the body of an animal or a prisoner is dragged along, or a culprit is drawn before the tribunal (comp. John 18:10; John 21:6; John 21:11; Acts 16:19, and the classical Dictionaries, also Meyer, p266). It is certainly much stronger than δίδωσι, John 6:37, and implies active or passive resistance, or obstructions to be removed. Here and in John 12:32, it does, of course, not mean physical or moral compulsion, for faith is in its very nature voluntary, and coming to Christ is equivalent to believing in Him; but it clearly expresses the mighty moral power of the infinite love of the Father who so orders and overrules the affairs of life and so acts upon our hearts, that we give up at last our natural aversion to holiness, and willingly, cheerfully and thankfully embrace the Saviour as the gift of gifts for our salvation. The natural inability of man to come to Christ, however, is not physical nor intellectual, but moral and spiritual; it is an unwillingness. No change of mental organization, no new faculty is required, but a radical change of the heart and will. This is effected by the Holy Ghost, but the providential drawing of the Father prepares the way for it.—P. S.]

John 6:45. It is written in the prophets, etc.—[This verse explains what kind of drawing was meant in the preceding verse, viz, by divine illumination of the mind and heart.] Prophets, i.e, the division of the Holy Scriptures called the Prophets. Yet the phrase is no doubt intended to assert that the particular passage, Isaiah 54:13, (quoted freely from the Sept.), is found in substance throughout the prophets (which Tholuck calls in question; comp. Isaiah 11; Jeremiah 31:33; Joel 3:1). Taught of God.—Taught by God; the genitive with the participle denoting the agent. The promises of universal illumination in the time of the Messiah. In the prophet the point of the passage quoted lies in the “all” in contrast with the isolated enlightenment under the Old Testament. And here, too, this universality is not denied, though it is to be limited to all believers. The children of the Messianic time are the “all” from the fact that an inward, immediate divine illumination gives them faith in the word spoken by Christ. Cyril, Ammonius, and the older Lutheran expositors: Taught of God, per vocem evangelicam; the mystics: by the Spirit working with the outward word, by the inner light; Clericus, Delitzsch, and others: by the prevenient grace.—It is the calling provided for by election and fore-ordination; but it is this calling considered inwardly, as the operation of the Father by the Spirit;—an operation distinct from the spiritual life which proceeds from the Song of Solomon, but not separate from it. Effectual calling, on its intellectual side: the enlightening of the mind.

Every man that hath learned of the Father.—According to the reading ἀκούων, we suppose the hearing the Father is to be conceived as continuous. As soon as the having learned is thereby effected, the Prayer of Manasseh, as one taught of God, comes to Christ. The reference is of course to the whole discipline of the Father, which proceeds from His election; but it is to this (1) as becoming manifest in the effectual calling, and (2) as therein reaching its goal. Hence it is not the elect simply in view of this election (Beza), that are intended; still less the elect in a predestinarian sense.

John 6:46. Not that any one hath seen the Father.—Explaining, that those who are taught of God in the Messianic age, still have need of the Messiah. Different interpretations: (1) The Lord would contrast His true seeing of God with that of Moses (Cyril, Erasmus). (2) He would forestall the spiritualistic view, that the inward manifestation of God supersedes the historical Christ (Calovius, Lampe). (3) He would mark a difference in degree and kind of revelation (Bengel: Videre interius Esther, quam audire; Tholuck). The third interpretation does not, as Tholuck thinks, set aside the second. The same fact, that the historical Christ is the positive fulfilment of all previous revelation and knowledge of God, and is therefore indispensable, is expressed in a different way; but all such facts as that He is Reconciler, King, Redeemer, are rooted in the fact that, being the Son; He Isaiah, in His perfect vision of God, the absolute Prophet (comp. John 1:18). Save he who is of God.—The full divine nature was necessary to the full view of God.

John 6:47. He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.—Here again it must be observed, (1) that Christ has put His previous Messianic statements in a general form, not in the first person, but that He connects His soteriological statement, His declaration of salvation, directly with His person; and (2) that He asseverates: Verily, verily. This Isaiah, therefore, Christ’s positive offer of Himself as the personal Saviour; and now follows the declaration.

[Mark the present tense hath (ἔχει), not shall have. Eternal life is not confined to the future world, but is ever present and becomes ours as soon as we lay hold of Christ who is eternal life Himself. The resurrection of the body is only the full bloom of what has begun here. Mark also that faith, and nothing else, is laid down here, and in this whole discourse (comp. John 6:40; John 3:15-16,) as the condition of eternal life. The eating of Christ’s flesh and the drinking of His blood, to be consistent with this, is only a stronger form of expressing the same idea of a real personal appropriation of Christ by faith. This refutes all forms of ecclesiasticism which throw any kind of obstruction between the soul and Christ, as an essential condition of salvation, whether it be the authority of pope or council or creed or system of theology, or the intercession of saints, or good works of our own. Salvation depends solely and exclusively upon personal union with Christ: all other things, however important in their place, are subordinate to this. Without faith in Christ there can be no salvation for any sinner: this is the exclusiveness of the gospel; but with faith in Christ there is salvation for all of whatever sect or name: this is its charity.—P. S.]

John 6:48. I am the bread of life.—Tholuck (like Meyer), on John 6:47-51 : “After repelling the objection of the Jews, Jesus returns to His former theme in John 6:32-40, and in the first place repeats the same thought.” We find here not a return, but an advance, carrying the thought forward from the person of Christ to His historical work. This appears from what follows. “Of the life.” Referring to the preceding promise of eternal life. “Τῆζ ζωῆς. Genitiv. qual. and effectus.” Or probably, conversely, the genitive of form or mode of existence. [That Isaiah, not: “the bread which has the quality and effect of life, the bread which is and which gives life;” but: “the life which is bread; the life existing and offered in the form of bread, and operating as bread.”—E. D. Y.] Previously the bread was the subject, with various predicates (the person); now the bread becomes an attribute of the life (the giving and the effect of the person). The life as bread, not the bread as life. That Jesus is the life, follows from John 6:46-47. This thought is expanded further on.

John 6:49. Your fathers did eat manna.—The manna gave no abiding life, because it was not essential life.

John 6:50. This is the bread.—By this the bread may be known as the true bread: that it comes down from heaven for the purpose and to the effect that whosoever eateth of it shall not die; or, more precisely: It cometh down from heaven, in order that men may eat of it (the μὴ ἀποθάνῃ affecting this first clause), and that he who eateth of it may not die. The definition of the true bread by its origin, its design, and its effects. The μὴ ἀποθάνῃ is more exactly expressed in the κἂν ἀποθάνῃ of John 11:25.

John 6:51. I am the living bread.—I am the bread living. The life is now the logical subject. The Vulgate: Ego sum panis vivus (,) qui de cœlo descendi; the bread living, who 1pers.] have come down from heaven.