John 6:33-35

6:33 For the bread of God is the one who ¹  comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 6:34 So they said to him, “Sir, ²  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. ³ 

John 6:47-58

6:47 I tell you the solemn truth, ⁴  the one who believes ⁵  has eternal life. ⁶  6:48 I am the bread of life. ⁷  6:49 Your ancestors ⁸  ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 6:50 This ⁹  is the bread that has come down from heaven, so that a person ¹⁰  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 bread ¹¹  that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

6:52 Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus ¹²  began to argue with one another, ¹³  “How can this man ¹⁴  give us his flesh to eat?” 6:53 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, ¹⁵  unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ¹⁶  you have no life ¹⁷  in yourselves. 6:54 The one who eats ¹⁸  my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. ¹⁹  6:55 For my flesh is true ²⁰  food, and my blood is true ²¹  drink. 6:56 The one who eats ²²  my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me, and I in him. ²³  6:57 Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who consumes ²⁴  me will live because of me. 6:58 This ²⁵  is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread your ancestors ²⁶  ate, but then later died. ²⁷  The one who eats ²⁸  this bread will live forever.”

John 6:1

The Feeding of the Five Thousand

6:1 After this ²⁹  Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (also called the Sea of Tiberias). ³⁰ 

Colossians 1:26-29

1:26 that is, the mystery that has been kept hidden from ages and generations, but has now been revealed to his saints. 1:27 God wanted to make known to them the glorious ³¹  riches of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 1:28 We proclaim him by instructing ³²  and teaching ³³  all people ³⁴  with all wisdom so that we may present every person mature ³⁵  in Christ. 1:29 Toward this goal ³⁶  I also labor, struggling according to his power that powerfully ³⁷  works in me.

[6:33]  ¹ tn Or “he who.”

[6:34]  ² tn 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]  ³ tn Grk “the one who believes in me will not possibly thirst, ever.”

[6:47]  ⁴ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[6:47]  ⁵ tc 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]  ⁶ tn Compare John 6:40.

[6:48]  ⁷ tn That is, “the bread that produces (eternal) life.”

[6:49]  ⁸ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[6:50]  ⁹ tn Or “Here.”

[6:50]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “someone” (τις, tis).

[6:51]  ¹¹ tn Grk “And the bread.”

[6:52]  ¹² tn 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]  ¹³ tn Grk “with one another, saying.”

[6:52]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “this one,” “this person.”

[6:53]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[6:53]  ¹⁶ sn 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]  ¹⁷ tn That is, “no eternal life” (as opposed to physical life).

[6:54]  ¹⁸ tn 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]  ¹⁹ sn 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]  ²⁰ tn Or “real.”

[6:55]  ²¹ tn Or “real.”

[6:56]  ²² tn 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]  ²³ sn 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]  ²⁴ tn 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]  ²⁵ tn Or “This one.”

[6:58]  ²⁶ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[6:58]  ²⁷ tn 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]  ²⁸ tn 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.

[6:1]  ²⁹ tn Again, μετὰ ταῦτα (meta tauta) is a vague temporal reference. How Jesus got from Jerusalem to Galilee is not explained, which has led many scholars (e.g., Bernard, Bultmann, and Schnackenburg) to posit either editorial redaction or some sort of rearrangement or dislocation of material (such as reversing the order of chaps. 5 and 6, for example). Such a rearrangement of the material would give a simple and consistent connection of events, but in the absence of all external evidence it does not seem to be supportable. R. E. Brown (John [AB], 1:236) says that such an arrangement is attractive in some ways but not compelling, and that no rearrangement can solve all the geographical and chronological problems in John.

[6:1]  ³⁰ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author. Only John in the New Testament refers to the Sea of Galilee by the name Sea of Tiberias (see also John 21:1), but this is correct local usage. In the mid-20’s Herod completed the building of the town of Tiberias on the southwestern shore of the lake; after this time the name came into use for the lake itself.

[1:27]  ³¹ tn The genitive noun τῆς δόξης (ths doxhs) is an attributive genitive and has therefore been translated as “glorious riches.”

[1:28]  ³² tn Or “admonishing,” or “warning.” BDAG 679 s.v. νουθετέω states, “to counsel about avoidance or cessation of an improper course of conduct,, admonish, warn, instruct.” After the participle νουθετοῦντες (nouqetounte", “instructing”) the words πάντα ἄνθρωπον (panta anqrwpon, “all men”) occur in the Greek text, but since the same phrase appears again after διδάσκοντες (didaskontes) it was omitted in translation to avoid redundancy in English.

[1:28]  ³³ tn The two participles “instructing” (νουθετοῦντες, nouqetounte") and “teaching” (διδάσκοντες, didaskonte") are translated as participles of means (“by”) related to the finite verb “we proclaim” (καταγγέλλομεν, katangellomen).

[1:28]  ³⁴ tn Here ἄνθρωπον (anqrwpon) is twice translated as a generic (“people” and “person”) since both men and women are clearly intended in this context.

[1:28]  ³⁵ tn Since Paul’s focus is on the present experience of the Colossians, “mature” is a better translation of τέλειον (teleion) than “perfect,” since the latter implies a future, eschatological focus.

[1:29]  ³⁶ tn The Greek phrase εἴς ὅ (eis Jo, “toward which”) implies “movement toward a goal” and has been rendered by the English phrase “Toward this goal.”

[1:29]  ³⁷ tn The prepositional phrase ἐν δυνάμει (en dunamei) seems to be functioning adverbially, related to the participle, and has therefore been translated “powerfully.”