Through Jesus’ discourse on the bread of life, John is able to make some important theological points which reveal who he believes Jesus to be.
First, Jesus tells the crowd to work not “for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life” (v 27). The food of which Jesus speaks is not the physical bread, which was multiplied in the last narrative, but is similar to the water offered to the Samaritan woman—“water welling up to eternal life” (Jn 4:14).
In both cases, John understands Jesus to be offering faith to people. Faith is food which nourishes people throughout their lives to eternal life. Water is drink which quenches the thirst for God that people have throughout their lives to eternal life. Through faith in Jesus, people have their hunger and thirst satisfied.
Second, the food and drink of faith does not have to be worked for, as one would work for money to buy physical bread or as one would work by carrying water or making money to pay a bill. When the crowds ask, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus tells them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent” (vv 28-29). In other words, faith is not earned; it is a free gift offered by God through Jesus.
Third, the crowd thinks that it needs a sign in order to believe in Jesus. After all, there was the sign of manna in the desert in the past. Through Moses’ intercession, God had given his people bread from heaven to eat. God worked a whole series of signs and the people believed in him.
Jesus takes the focus off of Moses and reminds the people that it was not Moses who gave them bread from heaven. It was the Father. And the Father now gives them the true bread from heaven.
The “true bread from heaven” is not physical bread, like the manna of the past. “The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (v 33).
John understands Jesus to be this bread which sustains life. Bread is a staple of life. Jesus is the staple of eternal life. Just like the manna sustained the lives of the Israelites in the desert, so now those who believe in Jesus will find that their lives are sustained for eternal life.
For John, Jesus is bread. All people need to do is to ask: “Lord, give us this bread always” (v 34). However, they have to understand that what they are asking for is not a loaf of physical bread but the faith to believe that Jesus will satisfy their hunger and their thirst forever.