(51) I am the living bread.--The words are again repeated (comp. John 6:35; John 6:48), but with a new fulness of meaning. He spoke before of bread which was "of life," characterised by life, producing life. He now speaks of this bread as "living," containing the principle of life in itself. (Comp. John 4:13-14; John 5:26). Once again, too, He answers their demand for bread "from heaven" (John 6:31). The lifeless manna fell and lay upon the ground until they gathered it, and passed to corruption if they did not. Each day's supply met the need of each day, but met that only. He is the bread containing life in Himself, coming by His own will and act from heaven, living among men, imparting life to those who eat by coming to and believing on Him, so that it becomes in them a principle of life, too, which cannot die, but shall live for ever.

And the bread that I will give is my flesh.--The following words, "which I will give," should be, probably, omitted, and the whole clause should be read--And the bread that I will give is My flesh for the life of the world. The words are in every way full of meaning, and the history of their interpretation is a long chapter in the history of Christian doctrine. Their connection with the words used at the institution of the Lord's Supper will be dealt with in Excursus C: The Sacramental Teaching of St. John's Gospel. Their meaning for the immediate hearers is to be found in the thoughts which led up to them, and which they would suggest to a spiritually-minded Jew. They are, indeed, to be spiritually interpreted (John 6:63), and many, even among the disciples, feel it is a hard saying which they cannot hear (John 6:60); but the elements of the interpretation are to be sought in the Jewish mind. They have followed Him after a miracle which multiplied a few common barley loaves and fishes, and made them more than enough for thousands (John 6:22-24); He has rebuked the mere bread-seeking spirit, and declared to them the true food (John 6:26; John 6:29); they have demanded a sign from heaven like the manna (John 6:30-31); He has answered that the manna was the Father's gift, and that He is the true bread from heaven (John 6:32-35); He has shown parenthetically the real ground of their unbelief (John 6:36-46), and again returned to the thought of the bread of life which they have murmured at (John 6:41-42), and which He has more fully explained (John 6:47-51). He now identifies the bread of which He has spoken with His flesh, and says that He will give that for the life of the world. This form of human flesh is, as bread, the means by which life is conveyed; it is the word by which the Eternal Spirit speaks to the spirit of man. (Comp. John 1:14, which is the only other passage in this Gospel, and Luke 24:39, of the resurrection body, which is the only other passage in the New Testament, where the word "flesh" is used of the person of Christ.)

These are the thoughts which have immediately led to these words; but many a chord in the Jewish mind ought to have vibrated to them. The emphatic "I will give," whether it is repeated or not, refers perhaps to the contrast with Moses (John 6:32), but certainly to a gift in the future, and, therefore, not to the Incarnation, but to the Crucifixion. The great Teacher, whom many of them had heard, realised that the human form they now looked upon was the "Lamb of God" of Isaiah's prophecy (John 1:36, Note). It was now the time of their Paschal Feast (John 6:4), when Jewish families were assembling to eat the flesh which told of the deliverance from Egyptian bondage and the birth of the nation's life. Every day of Temple service told of flesh given in sacrifice for sin, and eaten in maintenance of the individual life. His words, uttered at this Passover, and fulfilled at the next, announce a gift of His own flesh as the true Paschal Lamb, as the sacrifice for the sins of the world, and as the sustenance of the true life of mankind.

Verse 51. - I am (not only the "Bread of God," the "Bread of life," the life-giving Personality, but) the living Bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this Bread, he will live forever. With this verse We see, instead of monotony, a threefold advance.

(1) In place of the life-giving Bread, he declares himself to be as Bread, yet a living Person, possessing therefore in himself the essential principle and energy of life.

(2) Instead of coming down, used characteristically or universally, he points to a definite, concrete, historic fact - "that has come down out of heaven."

(3) Instead of saying, "he may not die," we find the glorious assertion, "he will live forever." The kind of eating of which he speaks becomes clearer; the kind of food, the kind of death, the kind of life, all burst into light which points back to the first great word of this discourse, viz. "Labour tot that food which endureth unto eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you, for this one the Father, even God, hath scaled." "The miraculous feeding of yesterday was but the metaphor by which I was conveying this thought, that I was providing an inexhaustible supply for the eternal life of that humanity which I have assumed." In the last clause of the verse he made a yet further advance: Yea, and the bread which I shall give is my flesh (which I shall give) for the life of the world. The καὶ... δὲ of the commencement of the clause show a continuation of the thought with a new departure, coordination, and progress, "Yea, and the bread which I shall give is my flesh." Though the word "flesh" is often described by some of its frequent characteristics and qualities, and might be and has been regarded as the bodily and sensuous nature, and also as the seat of sin, it is, both by Paul and John, used for the nature of man as a creature - its totality regarded on its earthly side, the entire "humanity" which Christ assumed, the common antithesis to "spirit" viewed as the Divine supernatural gift to man. He was (1 Timothy 3:16) "manifest in the flesh," in "the likeness of sinful flesh" (Romans 8:3) - in a flesh free from all sin. He came "in the flesh" (1 John 2:16; 1 John 4:2). This humanity of his he gives, or rather, when he spake these words, he would give, to be eaten, to be assimilated by faith; and, having reached this point, he added (i.e. if we retain the questioned clause, which, with Meyer and Godet, we see no sufficient reason for discarding), which flesh,which humanity of his, he will further give to be slain and sacrificed for the sake of, or on behalf of, the world. This clause, which the Vatican Codex, etc., reject, proceeds clearly on the supposition that Christ advances here to the prediction and promise of his death. It is so worded as all the more to justify the emphasis he subsequently lays upon the death itself as essential to a full participation in himself. In this verse and closing utterance he prepares for further disclosures, and the flesh of Christ receives explanation from the rich and varied reference to it in the final words of the discourse, where the flesh is the great metaphor of his Divine humanity, and the blood is the expressive description of his awful sacrifice. He, the Life-giver, the Living One, the Bread of life, the living Bread, will give himself to what men call death, that they, apprehending fully, adequately accepting the greatness of the Divine gift, may, like himself, transform death (so called death) into the portal of eternal life. These words are the new starting point for this great disclosure. The very inner thought of Jesus seems to shape itself as we read. The Paschal sacrifice, eaten at that season as the sign that the theocratic nation had been chosen to covenant and eternal relation with Jehovah, must have been present to his mind. His own approaching death and sacrifice, by which he would bind those who receive him into an eternal covenant with himself, his relation to the whole world, the gift of the Father to him, the gift of himself to the world by the Father, - all are presented to him, and the movements of his great heart reveal themselves as he proceeds.

6:47-51 The advantage of the manna was small, it only referred to this life; but the living Bread is so excellent, that the man who feedeth on it shall never die. This bread is Christ's human nature, which he took to present to the Father, as a sacrifice for the sins of the world; to purchase all things pertaining to life and godliness, for sinners of every nation, who repent and believe in him.I am the living bread which came down from heaven,.... This is the same with what is said in John 6:33, which is true of Christ, as he has life in him; and is the author and giver of life to others; and is of an heavenly original, and came from heaven to give life to men: and such is the virtue of this living and heavenly bread, that

if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever; not a natural, but a spiritual life; a life of sanctification, which is begun here, and will be perfected hereafter; and a life of glory, which will never end:

and the bread that I will give is my flesh; or "body", as all the Oriental versions render it. Here our Lord explains more clearly and fully what he means, under the notion of bread; and which shows, that by bread he did not design merely his doctrine, but his flesh, his human nature; though not as abstracted from his deity, but as in union with it:

which I will give for the life of the world; and which he did by the offering up of his body, and making his soul, or giving himself an offering, a propitiatory sacrifice for sin; which was done in the most free and voluntary manner, in the room and stead of his people, to procure eternal life for them, even for the whole world of his elect; whether among Jews or Gentiles; particularly the latter are here meant, in opposition to a notion of the Jews, that the world, or the Gentiles, would receive no benefit by the Messiah when he came; See Gill on John 3:16.