John 6:32-58

Context

6:32 Then Jesus told them, “I tell you the solemn truth,¹ it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but my Father is giving you the true bread from heaven. 6:33 For the bread of God is the one who² comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 6:34 So they said to him, “Sir,³ give us this bread all the time!”

6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. The one who comes to me will never go hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.⁴ 6:36 But I told you⁵ that you have seen me⁶ and still do not believe. 6:37 Everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never send away.⁷ 6:38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. 6:39 Now this is the will of the one who sent me – that I should not lose one person of every one he has given me, but raise them all up⁸ at the last day. 6:40 For this is the will of my Father – for everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him to have eternal life, and I will raise him up⁹ at the last day.”¹⁰

6:41 Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus¹¹ began complaining about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” 6:42 and they said, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 6:43 Jesus replied,¹² “Do not complain about me to one another.¹³ 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him,¹⁴ and I will raise him up at the last day. 6:45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’¹⁵ Everyone who hears and learns from the Father¹⁶ comes to me. 6:46 (Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God – he¹⁷ has seen the Father.)¹⁸ 6:47 I tell you the solemn truth,¹⁹ the one who believes²⁰ has eternal life.²¹ 6:48 I am the bread of life.²² 6:49 Your ancestors²³ ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 6:50 This²⁴ is the bread that has come down from heaven, so that a person²⁵ may eat from it and not die. 6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. The bread²⁶ that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

6:52 Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus²⁷ began to argue with one another,²⁸ “How can this man²⁹ give us his flesh to eat?” 6:53 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth,³⁰ unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,³¹ you have no life³² in yourselves. 6:54 The one who eats³³ my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.³⁴ 6:55 For my flesh is true³⁵ food, and my blood is true³⁶ drink. 6:56 The one who eats³⁷ my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me, and I in him.³⁸ 6:57 Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who consumes³⁹ me will live because of me. 6:58 This⁴⁰ is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread your ancestors⁴¹ ate, but then later died.⁴² The one who eats⁴³ this bread will live forever.”

[6:32] ¹tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[6:33] ²tn Or “he who.”

[6:34] ³tn Or “Lord.” The Greek κύριος (kurios) means both “Sir” and “Lord.” In this passage it is not at all clear at this point that the crowd is acknowledging Jesus as Lord. More likely this is simply a form of polite address (“sir”).

[6:35] ⁴tn Grk “the one who believes in me will not possibly thirst, ever.”

[6:36] ⁵tn Grk “But I said to you.”

[6:36] ⁶tc A few witnesses lack με (me, “me”; א A a b e q sy^s,c), while the rest of the tradition has the word (Ì^66,75vid rell). It is possible that the mss that lack the pronoun preserve the original wording here, with the rest of the witnesses adding the pronoun for clarity’s sake. This likelihood increases since the object is not required in Greek. Without it, however, ambiguity increases: The referent could be “me” or it could be “signs,” reaching back to vv. 26 and 30. However, the oblique form of ἐγώ (egw, the first person personal pronoun) occurs some two dozen times in this chapter alone, yet it vacillates between the emphatic form and the unemphatic form. Although generally the unemphatic form is used with verbs, there are several exceptions to this in John (cf. 8:12; 12:26, 45, 48; 13:20; 14:9). If the pronoun is a later addition here, one wonders why it is so consistently the unemphatic form in the mss. Further, that two unrelated Greek witnesses lack this small word could easily be due to accidental deletion. Finally, the date and diversity of the witnesses for the pronoun are so weighty that it is likely to be authentic and should thus be retained in the text.

[6:37] ⁷tn Or “drive away”; Grk “cast out.”

[6:39] ⁸tn Or “resurrect them all,” or “make them all live again”; Grk “raise it up.” The word “all” is supplied to bring out the collective nature of the neuter singular pronoun αὐτό (auto) in Greek. The plural pronoun “them” is used rather than neuter singular “it” because this is clearer in English, which does not use neuter collective singulars in the same way Greek does.

[6:40] ⁹tn Or “resurrect him,” or “make him live again.”

[6:40] ¹⁰sn Notice that here the result (having eternal life and being raised up at the last day) is produced by looking on the Son and believing in him. Compare John 6:54 where the same result is produced by eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood. This suggests that the phrase in 6:54 (eats my flesh and drinks my blood) is to be understood in terms of the phrase here (looks on the Son and believes in him).

[6:41] ¹¹tn Grk “Then the Jews.” In NT usage the term ᾿Ιουδαῖοι (Ioudaioi) may refer to the entire Jewish people, the residents of Jerusalem and surrounding territory, the authorities in Jerusalem, or merely those who were hostile to Jesus. (For further information see R. G. Bratcher, “‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John,” BT 26 [1975]: 401-9.) Here the translation restricts the phrase to those Jews who were hostile to Jesus (cf. BDAG 479 s.v. ᾿Ιουδαῖος 2.e.β), since the “crowd” mentioned in 6:22-24 was almost all Jewish (as suggested by their addressing Jesus as “Rabbi” (6:25). Likewise, the designation “Judeans” does not fit here because the location is Galilee rather than Judea.

[6:43] ¹²tn Grk “answered and said to them.”

[6:43] ¹³tn Or “Do not grumble among yourselves.” The words “about me” are supplied to clarify the translation “complain to one another” (otherwise the Jewish opponents could be understood to be complaining about one another, rather than complaining to one another about Jesus).

[6:44] ¹⁴tn Or “attracts him,” or “pulls him.” The word is used of pulling or dragging, often by force. It is even used once of magnetic attraction (A. Oepke, TDNT 2:503).

[6:45] ¹⁵sn A quotation from Isa 54:13.

[6:45] ¹⁶tn Or “listens to the Father and learns.”

[6:46] ¹⁷tn Grk “this one.”

[6:46] ¹⁸sn This is best taken as a parenthetical note by the author. Although some would attribute these words to Jesus himself, the switch from first person in Jesus’ preceding and following remarks to third person in v. 46 suggests that the author has added a clarifying comment here.

[6:47] ¹⁹tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[6:47] ²⁰tc Most witnesses (A C² D Ψ Ë^1,13 33 Ï lat and other versions) have “in me” (εἰς ἐμέ, eis eme) here, while the Sinaitic and Curetonian Syriac versions read “in God.” These clarifying readings are predictable variants, being motivated by the scribal tendency toward greater explicitness. That the earliest and best witnesses (Ì^66,75vid א B C* L T W Θ 892 pc) lack any object is solid testimony to the shorter text’s authenticity.

[6:47] ²¹tn Compare John 6:40.

[6:48] ²²tn That is, “the bread that produces (eternal) life.”

[6:49] ²³tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[6:50] ²⁴tn Or “Here.”

[6:50] ²⁵tn Grk “someone” (τις, tis).

[6:51] ²⁶tn Grk “And the bread.”

[6:52] ²⁷tn Grk “Then the Jews began to argue.” Here the translation restricts the phrase to those Jews who were hostile to Jesus (cf. BDAG 479 s.v. ᾿Ιουδαῖος 2.e.β), since the “crowd” mentioned in 6:22-24 was almost all Jewish (as suggested by their addressing Jesus as “Rabbi” (6:25). See also the note on the phrase “the Jews who were hostile to Jesus” in v. 41.

[6:52] ²⁸tn Grk “with one another, saying.”

[6:52] ²⁹tn Grk “this one,” “this person.”

[6:53] ³⁰tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[6:53] ³¹sn Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood. These words are at the heart of the discourse on the Bread of Life, and have created great misunderstanding among interpreters. Anyone who is inclined toward a sacramental viewpoint will almost certainly want to take these words as a reference to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, or the Eucharist, because of the reference to eating and drinking. But this does not automatically follow: By anyone’s definition there must be a symbolic element to the eating which Jesus speaks of in the discourse, and once this is admitted, it is better to understand it here, as in the previous references in the passage, to a personal receiving of (or appropriation of) Christ and his work.

[6:53] ³²tn That is, “no eternal life” (as opposed to physical life).

[6:54] ³³tn Or “who chews”; Grk ὁ τρώγων (Jo trwgwn). The alternation between ἐσθίω (esqiw, “eat,” v. 53) and τρώγω (trwgw, “eats,” vv. 54, 56, 58; “consumes,” v. 57) may simply reflect a preference for one form over the other on the author’s part, rather than an attempt to express a slightly more graphic meaning. If there is a difference, however, the word used here (τρώγω) is the more graphic and vivid of the two (“gnaw” or “chew”).

[6:54] ³⁴sn Notice that here the result (has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day) is produced by eating (Jesus’) flesh and drinking his blood. Compare John 6:40 where the same result is produced by “looking on the Son and believing in him.” This suggests that the phrase here (eats my flesh and drinks my blood) is to be understood by the phrase in 6:40 (looks on the Son and believes in him).

[6:55] ³⁵tn Or “real.”

[6:55] ³⁶tn Or “real.”

[6:56] ³⁷tn Or “who chews.” On the alternation between ἐσθίω (esqiw, “eat,” v. 53) and τρώγω (trwgw, “eats,” vv. 54, 56, 58; “consumes,” v. 57) see the note on “eats” in v. 54.

[6:56] ³⁸sn Resides in me, and I in him. Note how in John 6:54 eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood produces eternal life and the promise of resurrection at the last day. Here the same process of eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood leads to a relationship of mutual indwelling (resides in me, and I in him). This suggests strongly that for the author (and for Jesus) the concepts of ‘possessing eternal life’ and of ‘residing in Jesus’ are virtually interchangeable.

[6:57] ³⁹tn Or “who chews”; Grk “who eats.” Here the translation “consumes” is more appropriate than simply “eats,” because it is the internalization of Jesus by the individual that is in view. On the alternation between ἐσθίω (esqiw, “eat,” v. 53) and τρώγω (trwgw, “eats,” vv. 54, 56, 58; “consumes,” v. 57) see the note on “eats” in v. 54.

[6:58] ⁴⁰tn Or “This one.”

[6:58] ⁴¹tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[6:58] ⁴²tn Grk “This is the bread that came down from heaven, not just like your ancestors ate and died.” The cryptic Greek expression has been filled out in the translation for clarity.

[6:58] ⁴³tn Or “who chews.” On the alternation between ἐσθίω (esqiw, “eat,” v. 53) and τρώγω (trwgw, “eats,” vv. 54, 56, 58; “consumes,” v. 57) see the note on “eats” in v. 54.