Miracles and Multitudes ~ Part 5

In our last post, we began a new topic entitled Miracles and Multitudes. This post as we look at more Miracles and Multitudes.

Discourse On The Bread of Life ~ Part 2

We pick up where we left off last time, beginning with Yochanan 6:41. Here the Judeans begin to challenge Yeshua’s claim.

⁴¹ At this the Judeans began grumbling about Him because He said, “I am the bread which has come down from heaven.” ⁴² They said, “Isn’t this Yeshua Ben-Yosef?

Yeshua Ben-Yosef, Yeshua the son of Yosef. This would have been His official Hebrew name, by which He would have been known. Yosef, the carpenter, (or stone mason), was not physically His father, as we know from Mt 1:18–25 and Lk 1:26–38, 2:1–7; but he was legally His father and functioned as a father, raising Him so that he “grew both in wisdom and in stature” (Luke 2:52). To call Him Yeshua Ben-Elohim (“Yeshua, the Son of God”) would be correct, and He is called that in Yochanan 1:34 and at other places in the Brit Hadashah. But this theological truth would obviously not have been a practical means of identifying Yeshua in the society of His time.

We know his father and mother! How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” ⁴³ Yeshua answered them, “Stop grumbling to each other! ⁴⁴ No one can come to me unless the Father – the One who sent Me – draws him. And I will raise him up on the Last Day. ⁴⁵ It is written in the Prophets, ‘They will all be taught by Adonai.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from Him comes to He. ⁴⁶ Not that anyone has seen the Father except the One who is from God—He has seen the Father. ⁴⁷ Yes, indeed! I tell you, whoever trusts has eternal life: ⁴⁸ I am the bread which is life. ⁴⁹ Your fathers ate the manna in the desert; they died. ⁵⁰ But the bread that comes down from heaven is such that a person may eat it and not die. ^[1]

Yes indeed! Greek amên, amên, which reproduces the Hebrew words. The ladder imagery of coming down from heaven recalls Ya’akov’s dream (Genesis 28:12–15).

In our next post, we will continue examining the Miracles and Multitudes series beginning in Yochanan 6:51.

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^[1] Yochanan 6:41–50.