Drawn by the Father

The crowd didn’t like what they’d just heard. Jesus had claimed Heaven as His origin and Himself as the bread, and the Jews started muttering against Him (John 6:41).

That muttering has a history. Their fathers did the same thing in the wilderness, over the same subject, while the manna was still on the ground (Exodus 16:2, 8) (Numbers 14:27). Bread from Heaven lay outside their tents, and Israel complained. Now the true Bread stands in front of their sons, and they complain again (1 Corinthians 10:10).

John 6:41-42 — We know his family

Their objection is simple. They know this man. They know His parents. So how can He claim He came from Heaven? (John 6:42).

They’re half right and all wrong. Jesus really was raised in a Galilean home. But Joseph wasn’t His father. The child Mary carried was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and the One who grew up in Nazareth shared the Father’s glory before the world began (Matthew 1:18-20) (Luke 1:34-35) (John 1:1, 14, 17:5). Familiarity didn’t help them. It blinded them. They thought knowing His family meant they knew Him (Mark 6:3).

John 6:43-44 — No one comes on his own

Jesus doesn’t argue the family tree. He tells them to quit their muttering (John 6:43). Then He tells them why they’re doing it. Coming to Him is beyond any man’s natural power. Only the Father who sent the Son can bring a man to Him, and every man the Father brings, the Son will raise up when the last day comes (John 6:44).

That’s the root of their complaint. Their problem isn’t a lack of facts about Nazareth. It’s inability. Dead men don’t walk to the table by themselves (Ephesians 2:1, 4-5) (Romans 8:7-8).

The word for draw is strong. John uses it later for hauling a net full of fish to shore, and Luke uses it for men dragging Paul and Silas into the marketplace (John 21:6, 11) (Acts 16:19). The Father doesn’t hang a suggestion in front of a man and leave the rest to him. He brings him.

That doesn’t mean God drags a man to Christ kicking and screaming. He changes the man so he comes willingly. He takes out the heart of stone, puts in a heart of flesh, and the man walks to Christ gladly because now he wants to (Ezekiel 36:26-27) (Psalm 110:3). The Reformers and the Puritans after them called this effectual calling. God’s call doesn’t just invite. It does what it says, and it’s aimed at particular men He chose before the world began (Romans 8:30) (2 Timothy 1:9).

And notice how the verse ends. The drawn man isn’t drawn halfway. The one the Father draws is the one the Son raises. Nobody falls out between the drawing and the resurrection (Philippians 1:6).

John 6:45-46 — Taught by the Father

Then Jesus sends them to their own prophets. The Scriptures promised a day when every one of God’s children would learn directly from the LORD (John 6:45) (Isaiah 54:13) (Jeremiah 31:33-34). And every man the Father instructs ends up at the Son’s feet.

That “all” isn’t every human being. Plenty of men in that crowd heard Jesus and went home unchanged (John 6:66). It’s all of Zion’s children, every one God Himself teaches. And His teaching never misses. Not one man hears the Father and walks away from the Son.

This is how the drawing works. God doesn’t go around a man’s mind. He teaches him. He shines into his heart so he sees the glory of God in the face of Christ, and the man comes because he finally sees (2 Corinthians 4:6) (Acts 16:14) (1 John 5:20).

Jesus guards against a misunderstanding. Being taught by the Father doesn’t mean any man has seen the Father. Only the One who comes from God has seen Him (John 6:46). The Father teaches men by pointing them to the Son. There’s no back door to God that goes around Jesus (John 1:18, 14:9).

John 6:47-51 — Bread that ends death

Then Jesus speaks under solemn oath. Faith doesn’t wait for eternal life. The man who trusts Christ already has it (John 6:47).

He repeats that He’s the bread that gives life (John 6:48). Their fathers ate the manna in the desert, and every one of them died (John 6:49). Manna fed bodies that still went into the ground. The bread He is does what the manna never could. It ends death for the man who eats it (John 6:50). He calls Himself bread that’s alive, and the life He gives never runs out (John 6:51).

Then He says something new. The bread He’ll give is His own flesh, handed over so that the world might have life.

That points straight to the cross. Jesus isn’t only the bread that sustains. He’s the bread that’s broken. His body would be given in death, and His death would buy life for His people (Isaiah 53:5, 10-11) (Hebrews 10:10).

And “the world” here doesn’t mean every man without exception, as if Christ died hoping some would take Him up on it. This same chapter has already told us who comes, and it’s the drawn. The world He gives His flesh for is men from every tribe and nation, not Israel alone (John 11:51-52) (Revelation 5:9). He lays down His life for His sheep, and every one of them lives (John 10:11, 15).