This section of the text contains Jesus' enigmatic and attractive description of the Bread of Life. Jesus was whetting His hearers' appetites for it (cf. 4:10). The pericope ends with their asking Him to give them the Bread (v. 34).
6:26 Jesus' introductory words identified another very important statement (cf. vv. 32, 47, 53). He did not answer their question (v. 25) and tell them that He had walked across the surface of the lake. He did not want them to follow Him primarily because He could do miracles. He understood that their interest in Him was mainly because of His ability to provide for them physically. They were not interested in Him because they identified Him as the God-man but because Jesus could fill their stomachs. Many people today are only interested in Jesus because of the benefits He may give them. Jesus proceeded to explain what the miracle they had witnessed signified.
6:27 Jesus had previously spoken to the Samaritan woman about living water (4:10, 14), and now He spoke to these Galileans about food that endures. He was, as previously, contrasting physical and spiritual nourishment. Consequently the descriptions that follow contain a mixture of literal and metaphorical language. Jesus wanted His hearers to view the spiritual aspects of His mission as more important than its physical aspects.
The people apparently understood His reference to bread that endures to eternal life as meaning physical bread that does not become stale and moldy. As the Son of Man, Jesus claimed to be able to give this food because God the Father had set His seal of approval on Jesus. The Father had authorized the Son to act for Him (cf. 5:32-47). This was one of the functions of a seal in Jesus' culture. Jesus was speaking of Himself as the food (vv. 35, 53). The Son would give this food and eternal life, but the people had a responsibility to work for it too.
6:28 The works of God are the works that God requires to obtain the food that remains, even eternal life. The people were still thinking on the physical level. They thought Jesus was talking about some physical work that would yield eternal life. Moreover they assumed that they could do it and that by doing it they could earn eternal life. They ignored Jesus' statement that He would give them eternal life (cf. Rom. 10:2-4). There is something within the fallen nature of human beings that makes working for eternal life more attractive than receiving it as a gift.
6:29 The only work that God requires of people for salvation is faith in His Son (cf. 3:11-17). The work that Jesus specified was not something physical at all. It was what God requires, namely trust in Jesus (cf. Rom. 3:28). Jesus' reply was a flat contradiction of the idea that people can earn salvation with their good deeds. This is another of the many great evangelistic verses in John's Gospel (1:12; 3:16, 36; 5:24; 6:47; et al.).
6:30-31 Jesus had told the people what work they needed to do to obtain eternal life. Now they asked Him what work He would do to prove that He was God's authorized representative as He claimed to be (cf. 1 Cor. 1:22). They suggested that producing bread from heavenas Moses did might convince them. Their unwillingness to believe the sign that Jesus had given them the previous day shows the hardness of their hearts. No matter what Jesus did the unbelievers always demanded more.
Probably Jesus' providing bread for thousands of people the previous day led them to ask for this greater miracle. Some of them had concluded that Jesus might be the Prophet that Moses had predicted (v. 14). If He was, He ought to be able to do greater miracles than Moses did. The manna that Moses produced spoiled if left uneaten overnight, but Jesus seemed to be promising bread that would not spoil.
The source of the people's loose quotation is probably Psalm 78:24. However there are also similarities to Nehemiah 9:15; Exodus 16:4 and 15; and Psalm 105:40.
"This section of the discourse is to be understood against the background of a Jewish expectation that, when the Messiah came, he would renew the miracle of the manna."252
6:32-33 The people were viewing Moses as the source of their blessing in the past. Jesus pointed them beyond Moses to the true source, namely God. He wanted them to look to God for their needs, not to a human channel of God's blessing.
Jesus also turned the conversation away from the request for a physical sign back to the subject of the bread that satisfies. God had given manna in the past, but He was giving a new type of bread now. Jesus described it as coming down from heaven and providing life for the entire world, not just Israel. With this response Jesus effectively took Moses and his sign, which the people had put in a superior place over Himself, and placed them in an inferior position under Himself. The true (Gr. alethinos, genuine or original, cf. 1:9) bread is the bread that satisfies ultimately. In this discourse Jesus mentioned seven times that He had come down out of heaven, stressing the fact that He was God's divine gift (vv. 33, 38, 41, 42, 50, 51, 58).
6:34 Jesus had glorified the new bread sufficiently now for the people to request it of Him, as he had glorified the living water for the Samaritan woman. He had set them up for the revelation that He was that bread. If they were sincere in their desire for it, they would accept Him. Yet the people did not realize what they were requesting, as the woman at the well did not (cf. 4:15). They were still thinking of physical bread. They wanted this new type of physical bread from then on.
