John 6:26-59

The Bread of Life, Eating His Flesh And Drinking His Blood (John 6:26).

The narrative that follows must be carefully divided up if it is to be properly understood. There are in fact three clearly differentiated phases:

· The first is to do with the crowd who have come seeking Him (John 6:26). In this there is only reference to partaking of the bread of life by coming to Him and believing on Him. The ideas that He promulgates are purely based on the parabolic idea of spiritual bread.

· The second is when some Judaisers (strongly religious and narrow-minded Jews) get involved and begin to take offence and mutter against Him. At this stage too He is dealing with the question of the bread that came down from Heaven (John 6:41 or John 6:51), and offering Himself as the bread of life to men. But it is still parabolic about bread in a similar way to the first except that, if we include John 6:51 (which is not certain as it may introduce the third section), Jesus now adds the idea of giving His flesh for the life of the world (John 6:51).

· The third phase follows this as a result of the Judaisers thinking over what He has said to them. It takes place in the synagogue at Capernaum (John 6:51 or John 6:52). But here we are faced with much more robust ideas, for His comment in John 6:51 leads on to ideas about ‘eating His flesh and drinking His blood', emphasising the part these men will have in His death. At this stage there is a new atmosphere. This one alone contains the ideas about drinking His blood.

The three phases glide into each other in the narrative and we cannot therefore be sure at what point they reached the synagogue. It is possible that all three elements took place in the synagogue, with the bigoted Judaisers appearing towards the end, but it appears unlikely. What is more likely is that only the third phase took place in the synagogue. The first discourse took place where ‘they found Him on the other side of the sea' (John 6:25), possibly, but not certainly, in Capernaum (they were aiming for Capernaum (John 6:24), but had they got there at this stage?). The second is in reply to the mutterings of Judaisers in the face of His return. They may have been with the crowds at least part of the time, or alternately they may have been informed of the content of the first discourse and have come up to raise the contentious questions. This may or may not have been in the synagogue. The final words are specifically remembered as having taken place in the synagogue (John 6:59).