We left off last time with a harmonized account of the loaves narratives, in which the Feeding of the 5,000 and the Feeding of the 4,000 were integrated into a single harmonized narrative using information from all four Gospels, beginning with the death of John the Baptist and ending with Peter’s confession of faith. That confession is typically taken to mean Peter was the first to believe, but in reality he was clearly the last. Jesus’ response to him should be understood in that context. From this harmonized account we understand statements that have confounded Roman Catholics, but are clear in the light of God’s revelation to us in the Scriptures. We understand what it means to eat “the true bread from heaven”, to “eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood”, why the loaves miracles were the antidote to the leaven of the Pharisees, upon which “rock” Jesus promised to “build My church,” why “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”; and what it means to receive the keys of the kingdom and the power to bind and loose on earth that which has been bound or loosed in heaven.

John’s Gospel, more than any other, emphasizes an indispensable and foundational truth of the Incarnation: that Jesus could only say what His Father had told Him to say. From the Baptist’s early preaching—”He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God” (John 3:34)—until Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane—”I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me” (John 17:8)—the theme of John’s Gospel is that Jesus had come to deliver the words of the Father. It was His mission and He could not be deterred from it. “My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me” (John 7:16). “I speak to the world those things which I have heard of Him” (John 8:26). “As my Father hath taught me, I speak those things” (John 8:28). “For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak” (John 12:49). “The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me” (John 14:24). “For all the things I have heard of my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15).

To Eat the Bread of Life

It is no surprise then, in the midst of the loaves narrative in John 6, that Jesus appealed to Isaiah 55 to remind His followers that true food, true drink, true bread that satisfies, is not physical food and drink but the words of the Father. When the people had followed Him across the sea seeking bread for their bellies, He chided them for seeking perishable bread:

Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed. (John 6:27)

That God the Father had “sealed” Jesus simply means that Jesus had been appointed a true witness of the Father’s words (see John 3:33-34). That “meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you” was none other than the words the Father had given Him to say. It was Jesus’ constant theme: “And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak” (John 12:49-50).

It is by this means that Jesus applied Isaiah 55 to Himself. The “water,” “wine,” “milk” and “bread” that “satisfieth” the soul, which He would give, was His Father’s words, and “to eat” and drink is “to hearken,” “to hear,” to “come unto me” and “to incline one’s ears” to God’s words, that “your soul shall live.” That “witness” God had given “to the people” is none other than Christ, “for him hath God the Father sealed,” and Jesus had come to testify of the lifegiving words of His Father, as Isaiah makes evident:

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. (Isaiah 55:1-4)

Therefore, when Jesus says “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35), there is no mystery as to His meaning. He has already laid down the meaning by invoking Isaiah. The bread that came down from heaven is the teachings of the Father. Jesus confirmed this precise meaning when the Jews murmured against him for saying “I am the bread which came down from heaven” (John 6:41). In response He did not say, “do not murmur, for My body which I will give you to eat is the bread that came down from heaven,” or “do not murmur, for the bread from heaven refers to My incarnation.” No, rather, He responded that the bread from heaven is the teachings of His Father:

Murmur not among yourselves. … It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. … Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. … This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. (John 6:43-50)

Jesus had established the meaning of “to eat” the bread from Heaven by invoking Isaiah 55—that is, to believe His teachings—and then doubled down by invoking Isaiah 54:13 “And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD.” As He mentioned earlier in the Gospel, “My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me” (John 7:16). To believe on Jesus is simply to believe the words the Father had given Him to say (John 12:44). The prophet Isaiah had defined “true bread” as the words of the Lord, and Jesus was that “true bread” because He could only say what the Father had told Him to say. To eat and to drink of Jesus is simply to “hearken diligently,” to “incline your ear” and to “hear” the words He spoke.

To Eat His Flesh and Drink His Blood

Hidden within Isaiah 55 is a foretelling of Jesus’ death and resurrection. After admonishing Israel to “eat” and “drink” “bread,” “wine,” “milk” and “the waters” by giving heed to His words, Isaiah then foretold Jesus’ triumph over death: “I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David” (Isaiah 55:3b). He had not only announced the promise of eternal life, but also the means by which that promise would be kept: the death and resurrection of Christ, for “I have given him for a witness to the people” (Isaiah 55:4). Since David’s own flesh and blood had gone to the grave and returned corrupted to the earth, “the sure mercies of David” could not refer to him, but to the incorruptible flesh and blood of his Offspring, Jesus. Paul made this very connection for us in his address to the men of Israel, informing them that Jesus’ death and resurrection had been foretold in those very words from Isaiah:

And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David [Isaiah 55:3]. … For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption: But he, whom God raised again, saw no corruption (Acts 13:34-37).

David’s flesh and blood had rotted in the grave. Jesus’ flesh and blood had not. His death and resurrection had therefore secured the blessings of the everlasting covenant to His people, for “He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living” (Mark 12:27). We are therefore not surprised that Jesus chided his hungry followers, reminded them of “the bread from heaven” that truly satisfies, and concluded with the flesh and blood that He would give for the life of the world. Not only had Isaiah foretold it, but it was the commandment He had received from His Father:

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. … As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. … Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. (John 10:11,15,17-18)

In the transition from “if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever” (John 6:51) to “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life” (John 6:54), Jesus never departed from Isaiah’s construct in which “to eat” and “to drink” is to incline one’s ears to believe His doctrines, of which His death and resurrection was the ultimate. Jesus had not merely said “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, I dwell in Him” but rather “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me…” (John 6:56). As He had affirmed repeatedly in the gospels, to “eat” true bread was to believe the words of His Father, and “to dwell in Him” is to believe the words His Father had sent Him to teach:

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)

If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him (John 14:23)

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. (John 15:7)

If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. (John 15:10)

For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. … Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. (John 17:8,20-21)

As John would later observe, “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God” (1 John 4:15). To dwell in Him, as He dwells in His Father, was not—as Roman Catholics ever insist—to munch or gnaw literally on His flesh in the Supper, but rather to receive His words as He received them from His Father, that we may dwell in Him as He dwells in the Father. The entire exchange is founded upon belief in the words the Father had sent Jesus to say. “He that eateth me, even he shall live by me” (John 6:57) is just another way to say “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:29), which is just another way to say “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life” (John 5:24), which in turn is another way to say “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you” (John 6:27), which is just another way to say, “Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David,” (Isaiah 55:3), which in turn is yet another way to say “He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. … And I know that his commandment is life everlasting” (John 12:44,50). Though the Jews puzzled and the disciples murmured, Jesus had never once departed from Isaiah. To eat and drink of Christ is simply to believe the words that His Father had instructed Him to say.

The Centrality of the Resurrection in the Narrative

It is here again that we reap a harvest of the harmonized loaves narrative. When compared side by side, the Jewish question in John, “What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee?” (John 6:30) answers to the Synoptic account in which the Pharisees and Sadducees “desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven” (Mt 16:1-4; Mk 8:11-13). Jesus’ answer in both the Johannine account (originating from Isaiah) and the Synoptic account (originating from Jonah) is to offer instead the doctrine of His resurrection:

In light of Jesus’ reliance on Isaiah in John 6, and His cryptic response to the Pharisees and Sadducees in Matthew 16, one singular precept emerges from the harmonized account: Jesus’ death and resurrection. “The sure mercies of David” (Isaiah 55:3) indicated that “He raised Him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption” (Acts 13: 34) which was a reference to “the sign of the prophet Jonas” (Matthew 16:4), the only sign the “wicked and adulterous generation” would receive when they asked for bread from Heaven as Moses had given their fathers. Jesus was that bread from heaven, and His death and resurrection was the “food” and “drink” they should have sought. To “eat His flesh and drink His blood” is to believe the sign of Jonah, which is rather, to “Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear” that “your soul shall live.”

That Jesus had never stopped talking about “eating” and “drinking” His doctrine is evidenced by His concluding remarks and the disciples response to Him.

“The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).

“Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68).

The entire conversation had been about the doctrines Jesus had received from His Father. The Jews assumed He was talking about eating literal bread and flesh and were confounded by that assumption. Dull of mind and hard of heart, the Roman Catholic assumes Jesus had been talking about literally eating and drinking transubstantiated bread and wine, and he too is confounded like the Jews. But Jesus had never stopped talking about the doctrines His Father had told Him to say. He and the apostles knew that He had been talking about the words, teachings and doctrines He had received from His Father, of which His coming death and resurrection was central. To eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man was to believe in “the sure mercies of David” (Isaiah 55:3), the incorruptible flesh and blood (Acts 13:34-37) that He would give for the life of the world (John 6:51-57), His death and resurrection unto life, the sign of Jonah (Matthew 16:4), by which He would be “delivered for our offences, and … raised again for our justification” (Romans 4:25).

The Meaning of the Loaves

It is in that context that we may discern why Jesus chided the apostles for originally missing the the significance of the two loaves miracles. In two of the Gospel accounts, after their final encounter with the Jews before Peter’s confession, the apostles had forgotten to eat, and Jesus warned them to beware the leaven of the Pharisees, the Sadducees and Herod. The apostles misunderstood, assuming He was talking about literal bread, and Jesus sternly rebuked them for not understanding:

O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? (Mt 16:8-10; c.f. Mk 8:17-20)

There was something about those two miracles, and the abundant provisions He had made for the multitudes, that should have made it sufficiently obvious to them that His warning was not about literal leaven. It is again in the harmonized accounts that we discover the nuance of His message.

What the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herod had in common was an expressed desire for a sign with an inward disregard for God’s word, an outward interest in the things of God with an inward disdain for Him. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for transgressing “the commandment of God” and making it “of none effect” by their traditions (Mt 15:1-9; Mk 7:1-13). He upbraided the Sadducees because “ye know not the scriptures” (Mk 12:24) and have not read “that which was spoken unto you by God” (Mt 22:31). Herod feared John the Baptist, and “heard him gladly” (Mk 6:20), but would not repent of his unlawful marriage (Mt 14:3-4). Of such men, Jesus said, “Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up” (Matthew 15:13). They had rejected the word of the Father, and Jesus would perform no sign for such men, except to be raised from the dead. This we gather from Synoptic accounts.

By way of contrast, when Jesus interacted with the Jews, He said that His followers who had believed in Him had been “taught of God” and “hath learned of the Father” (Jn 6:45). As John the Baptist had testified earlier, “He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God” (John 3:34). To this Jesus also testified when He said, “he that believeth on Me, believeth not on Me, but on Him that sent Me” (Jn 12:44). Since Jesus only said what His Father commanded Him to say, everyone therefore who “believeth on him,” had in fact believed the words of the Father. The Father’s word is “life everlasting” (John 12:50) which is another way of saying that eternal life is to believe in the words the Father had told the Son to say. Those who had heard and believed Him had fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy that “they shall be all taught of God.” They had gladly received the Word of the Father. This we gather from John’s account.

In the harmonized narrative it is thus clear why Jesus admonished the disciples to consider the many baskets left over after each miracle. The “true bread from heaven” consisted of the doctrines He had faithfully relayed from His Father. To the dismay of the Jews, many of the recipients of the multiplied loaves had responded in belief (John 6:14) for “they shall be all taught of God.” Of these, Jesus said, “Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me” (Jn 6:45). The true bread from Heaven was not literal bread but the doctrines of His Father, and to eat true bread was to be “taught of God”

The leaven of the Pharisees, on the other hand, was not literal leaven but rather “the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees” (Mt 16:12). This much the apostles should have discerned simply by hearing Jesus’ teaching as the events unfolded. Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves was a metaphor for giving life-giving teachings from His Father. For a man to eat the bread of life was to listen to, and believe the words of His Father, which is to say, for the Father’s word to abide in him. For a man to eat the Leaven of the Pharisees was to reject the words of the Father, which is to say, that the Father’s word did not abide in him.

And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. (John 5:38)

I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. (John 8:37)

Some disciples turned away because they had stumbled into the error of the Pharisees, seeking a sign but unwilling to believe what Jesus had been instructed by His Father to say. They did not believe, for they had not been “taught of God” and the Father’s word did not dwell in them.

To Believe the Doctrine of the Father

To eat the bread of life is to believe the words of the Father. To eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man is to believe in “the sure mercies of David,” which is to say, to believe Jesus’s words that “I lay down my life, that I might take it again,” which is to believe the sign of Jonah, the commandment from His Father. To “eat” bread is to learn from the Father and to be taught of God, which is to believe “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” But to “eat” leaven is to believe “the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadduccees,” which is to reject the words of the Son and prefer a sign instead, which is to reject the words of the Father, for “he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me” (Luke 10:16). Jesus’ entire earthly ministry, and therefore the entire loaves narrative, had been focused on one, single, solitary precept from which Christ had not wavered: “whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak” (John 12:50).

As we shall demonstrate next time, when Peter finally confessed that Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus’ response was not to celebrate that the first of His apostles had believed, but rather to recognize the completion of a task, for the last of the believing apostles had finally confessed. Peter was the last to learn the words of the Father: “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17). Peter, too, had finally been “taught of God” and having learned from the Father, had come to faith in Christ (John 6:45). And in that response from Jesus we see the rock upon which He would build His Church—not on Peter, nor on his confession, nor even on Himself. He would build His Church on a foundation greater even than He.