John 6:42Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Likewise, the Lord announces to blessed David by oath the true and unchangeable promise. He will set upon his throne One from the fruit of his loins, as it is written (Ps 131:11).

He also foretold that a rod would come forth from the root of Jesse (Is 11:1).

Yet they do not realize they have fallen into such folly. They see the fleshly "mother" of Him whose coming in the flesh was foretold.

For this reason, they think there can be no need to believe that He came down from heaven.

Yet although we find that this took place not according to the law of the flesh, the Divine Word was nevertheless in the body received from the Virgin as in His own temple.

He came down from the Father to us from above. For the salvation of all, He took on "the seed of Abraham," so that He might be made like "His brethren in all things" (Heb 2:16-17).

He did this in order to call human nature to adoption by God, appearing as God and also as man.

But the Jews did not understand the divine economy of our Savior's coming in the flesh. Because they knew His "mother" and His "father," though he was not His father, they are not ashamed to be indignant.

They are indignant that Christ says of Himself that He came down from heaven.

Here again a very useful example appears to us. Through this we are taught about matters that concern us.

Great harm can come to us if we no longer behold with the spiritual eyes of the heart the virtue present in the saints. We fail to look upon the glory hidden in them.

Because of their bodily insignificance, we often count as nothing what is great and most honorable before God.

Thus, in the prophets, God speaks in one place about the saints. In the person of one man, He extends the word, as it were, to all.

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and the Lord will be his hope. He shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which sends out its root by the stream.

In the time of drought he shall not fear, and he shall not cease bearing fruit. The heart is deep beyond all things, and man is such; who shall know him?

I the Lord search the hearts and test the inward parts" (Jer 17:7-10).

If, then, through our arrogance, we belittle a man known to God and made worthy of the virtues just named, we look only at his outward, visible, perishable flesh.

If we regard bodily dishonor as a sign of faintheartedness in him, will we not be found thinking contrary to the King of all?

Will we not thereby fall under no small punishment? We would be calling the lofty low, reckoning light as darkness, and counting the sweet bitter (Is 5:20).

Therefore we must preserve toward the saints the honor due them. We must contemplate them more in their inward and hidden excellences than in their bodily appearance.

Yet most of us do not consider worthy of honor or any glory what is despised in the world, even if it is distinguished by virtues.

We look only at great abundance of wealth. We gaze with utterly unjust eyes at passing glory, already almost ready to die, and we reduce right judgment to nothing.

The Savior's disciple rightly mocks such people, saying, "You hypocrites. If a man with a gold ring and fine clothing enters your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also enters,

then you say to the rich man, 'Sit here in a good place,' and to the poor man, 'Stand there,' or, 'Sit under my footstool.' Do you not judge within yourselves?" (Jas 2:2-4).

From this one can see what just rebuke is owed to those who honor a man by his outward clothing and not by his inward qualities.

For wealth and the splendor that comes from wealth can naturally bring their possessors only a foreign and counterfeit glory.

But the brightness of the heart and its radiance through good works will be true and natural wealth for those who possess them.

It does not remain with the body and rot together with it. Rather, it dwells with the soul while the soul remains in this earthly life.

When the soul departs, that wealth also flies away with it to the place indicated by the Guide of all. For "in My Father's house are many mansions," as we have heard (Jn 14:2).

Therefore honor must certainly, indeed necessarily, be shown not to the one glorious in wealth. Nor to the one adorned, as in a picture, with petty earthly glory.

Rather, honor belongs to those in whom the splendor of deeds, with God's help, begets unfading glory. Their inward beauty shows them forth in brilliant light through every kind of good.

That bread, of course, sought the hunger of the inner man. Therefore He says elsewhere, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled" (cf. Mt 5:6).

The Apostle Paul says that Christ Himself is righteousness for us (cf. 1 Cor 1:30). Therefore whoever hungers for that bread hungers for righteousness.

But he hungers for the righteousness that comes down from heaven, the righteousness that God gives, not the righteousness that man creates for himself.

For if man created no righteousness for himself, the same Apostle would not have said of the Jews: "Being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to the righteousness of God" (Rom 10:3).

Thus they were the ones who did not understand the bread that came down from heaven. Being filled with their own righteousness, they did not hunger for the righteousness of God.

What is the righteousness of God, and what is human righteousness? Here the righteousness of God does not mean that by which God is righteous, but that which God gives to man, so that man may become righteous through God.

But what was the righteousness of the Jews? It was that by which they relied on their own strength. Therefore they were, as it were, saying that by their own virtue they were fulfillers of the Law by themselves.

Yet only the one whom grace supports fulfills the Law. That grace is the bread that came down from heaven. For, as the Apostle says briefly, "love is the fulfillment of the law" (cf. Rom 13:10).

This is not love of money, but love of God. It is not love of earth or of heaven, but of Him Who created heaven and earth.

From where does man have this love? Let us hear the Apostle: "The love of God has been poured out in your hearts by the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us" (Rom 5:5).

Therefore the Lord, intending to give the Holy Spirit, said that He is the bread which came down from heaven, urging us to believe in Him. For to believe in Him is the same as to eat the living bread.

Whoever believes eats. He is filled invisibly, because he is invisibly born again. The infant is within. The new man is within. Where he has been renewed, there he is filled.

Jesus Christ did not say, "I am not the son of Joseph." Nor did He reveal anything at all about His origin. He knew that they were not yet able to hear of His wondrous birth, much less of His pre-eternal generation.

Therefore, according to His all-wise designs, He passed over this matter. He did so lest, while removing one stumbling block, He should create another.

Jesus Christ saw the hardness of their hearts. He now shows why they so stubbornly refuse to believe in Him. No one, He says, can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws him, as had already been foretold in the Old Testament.

Therefore, because of the hardheartedness and unworthiness of the Jews who heard Jesus Christ, the gracious action of the Father had not yet touched their hearts. This action calls to salvation.

Without it, man, blinded by sin, cannot see the light of truth. But lest anyone misunderstand Isaiah's prophecy (54:13) about direct instruction from God, Jesus Christ speaks further.

This prophecy must not be understood as though any man could ever see God, speak directly with Him, or know the divine essence through immediate sight and contemplation.

God acts upon men invisibly by His grace. The immediate vision of the divine essence belongs only to His Son.

Therefore only through the Son can men receive the full light of the knowledge of God needed for salvation, and through this receive eternal life (17:3).

Therefore: "Amen, amen, I say to you: he who believes in Me has eternal life."

"What is He saying? Can one believe Him when He says that He came from God, from heaven? He did not come from heaven, but from Nazareth. We all know this.

"We know that He is the son of Joseph the carpenter, and Himself a carpenter. We know His Mother as well. How then does He say that He came down from heaven? Who can believe this?"

That not all who were in the synagogue at that time murmured in this way, but only the scribes and Pharisees, is clear from what follows.

In answering this murmuring, Jesus appeals to the prophecies. He never did this when teaching the people who were unacquainted with the Scriptures.

The scribes and Pharisees, who were always hostile to Jesus Christ, did not miss the slightest opportunity to shake the people's faith in Him as the Messiah.

Now, when the Lord said that He came down from heaven to do the will of the Father Who sent Him (Jn 6:38), they turned to the people with unconcealed mockery.

They said that Jesus of Nazareth, whose father and Mother they knew, could not have come down from heaven.

Yet it had been foretold by the prophets: "Behold, the Virgin shall conceive" (Isa 7:14; Mt 1:23), and Isa 9:6: "A Child is born to us; a Son is given to us."

The Lord Jesus did not wish to draw the souls of His hearers to Himself by earthly glory, but by "the words of grace which proceeded from His mouth" (Lk 4:22).

The Jews murmur because He said to them, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." They do not understand that by their murmuring they repeat their perpetual rebellion against the Spirit of God.

This is not forgiven to man, because it proceeds from an evil will and a hardened soul, which maliciously refuses to bow before the words of grace and truth.

In the crowd surrounding the Lord, these Jews stand out sharply and vividly, that is, the scribes and Pharisees. Their heart is envious and unclean.

Their thoughts do not rise above the earthly Jewish kingdom. Their concepts are narrow. With the confidence and dullness of half-learned men and rationalists, they do not see the spiritual side of the teaching.

This teaching develops the human soul and raises it to heaven. But they do not understand the Spirit of God, and they measure the teaching they hear by their own small measure.

How, they say, can Jesus call Himself bread from heaven when we know His parents?

Earlier they had pointed to Moses and the manna, in order to set the prophet against the Lord Who had worked the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves.

They were silenced by the indication that God, not Moses, gave the manna. They were also silenced by the truth that manna is not eternal food, while the Word of God is eternal, spiritual food that gives eternal life.

Now the Jews raise another question about the origin of the One Who speaks to them the words of life. In the following verses the Lord again raises them from what is earthly and passing to what is heavenly and eternal.

The Lord's teaching saves only good souls. Hardened men condemn themselves to destruction, for the Lord's words are "the power of God to those who are being saved" (cf. 1 Cor 1:18), not to those who are perishing.