John 6:40

John 6:40. For this is the will of my Father, that every one which beholdeth the Son and believeth in him should have eternal life, and that I should raise him up at the last day. This verse is no mere repetition of the last, but differs from it in two important points. As in John 6:37, we pass from the thought of the general body of the Church to that of the individual members: in the Father's will every member is embraced. Secondly, the bond of connection with Jesus is viewed from its human rather than from its Divine side. In the last verse Jesus spoke of ‘all that which' the Father had given Him; here He speaks of ‘every one which beholdeth the Son and believeth in Him.' The word ‘beholdeth' is especially noteworthy, clearly including as it does an act of the will. ‘Seeing' may be accidental, may be transient: he who ‘beholds' is willing to stand and gaze on the object presented to his view. The word is full of instruction (comp. John 8:51; John 12:45; John 14:17; John 17:24).

At this point our lord's discourse is interrupted. Hitherto He has been addressing the multitude: now, for the first time in this chapter, we are to read of ‘the Jews.' i.e. (as we have observed in earlier Chapter s) adherents of the ruling party which was violently hostile to Jesus. Whether these Jews were amongst the multitude hitherto addressed in this discourse we cannot tell. If so, they had occupied no prominent place, but were lost in the crowd. But, as there is nothing to show that the paragraph which follows this verse relates to the same day, it is very possible that the Jews were not present at the miracle or when Jesus spoke of the bread of life, but were afterwards informed of His words. This latter supposition becomes more probable as we look into the circumstances. We know that on the day of the feeding of the multitude the Passover was at hand (John 6:4); and we cannot doubt that, however anxious the enemies of our Lord might be to linger near Him that they might catch Him in His talk, they would scrupulously observe the ritual of the feast. If we turn to Mark, we find two passages that distinctly speak of scribes who came down from Jerusalem to Galilee: one of these passages (John 3:22) belongs to a date somewhat earlier than that of the events related in this chapter, the other (John 7:1) comes in shortly after the narrative of Christ's walking on the sea of Galilee. The same remarks apply to the Gospel of Matthew. It seems probable, therefore, that these agents of the hostile and influential party in Jerusalem hastened back to Galilee after the Passover, to resume their machinations against the prophet whom they both hated and feared.