I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst (John 6:35).
The Lord Jesus makes five different never promises to anyone who believes in Him. Whoever believes in Him will never: 1) thirst, 2) hunger, 3) be cast out, 4) perish, or 5) die (spiritually).
In part 2, we will consider the second never promise in John’s Gospel—the promise that the believer will never hunger. It is found in John 6:35.
After Jesus fed 5,000 men, plus about 15,000 women and children (John 6:1-14), those who had received the free and miraculous bread requested, “Lord, give us this bread always” (John 6:34). Like the woman at the well (and Nicodemus in John 3), they were thinking in physical terms when they heard Jesus say,
“Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:32-33).
The Lord Jesus called Himself “the bread of God.” In this discourse, He used the metaphor of eating bread to refer to believing in Him. He went on to say, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger…” (John 6:35).
In his commentary on John 1-6, Zane Hodges had a lot to say about the second never promise, found in John 6:35:
6:35. A famous series of I am statements begins here: “I am the Bread of Life.” John emphasizes this truth’s centrality by repeating “I am the bread” in 6:41, 48, and 51; see also 6:58. In turn, 6:47-48, 51, and 58 link bread with life. Jesus is the life-giving Bread.
The parallelism of the second half of the verse clarifies what this means: “He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”
Just as people came upon manna to eat it (Exod 16:4), Jesus encourages coming to the Bread of Life to eat of that Bread. The parallelism equates comes to Me with believes in Me. John’s Gospel occasionally presents believing by using figurative language such as receiving (1:12), eating, and drinking (4:14; 6:37, 54). John’s 100 uses of the Greek verb for believe (pisteuō) underscore the Gospel’s emphasis on faith alone.
The concept of never hungering parallels the idea of never thirsting [see 4:14]. Both are emphatic. One bite or one sip (i.e., one moment of faith in Jesus) satisfies forever, even if one’s faith later falters. Compare 6:51, the end of the bread of life discourse, where the Lord reiterated, “If anyone eats of this bread [i.e., if anyone believes in Me, the Bread of Life], he will live forever…” (Faith in His Name, pp. 144-45).
Jesus promised that the moment one eats of the Bread of Life, that is, the moment one believes in Him, he has everlasting life and will never hunger again. One need not eat this bread every day in order to retain everlasting life. One bite of the Bread of Life, and a person has everlasting life that can never be lost. The moment one believes in Him, he is eternally secure.
Keep grace in focus, and you’ll never lose sight of Jesus’ promise that once you partake of the Bread of Life, you’ll never hunger again. You can never lose everlasting life.
