‘Jesus therefore said to them, “In very truth I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from Heaven. But my Father is giving you the true bread from Heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from Heaven and gives life to the world”.'
Jesus' reply appears to contain two elements. Firstly it informed them that it was God and not Moses who gave them the ‘bread from heaven'. And secondly it pointed out that what was given was not really bread from Heaven at all. While what was given did come from God, it was not heavenly bread, it was earthly nourishment. (Indeed, as He will remind them later, they ate of it and later died). But what He wanted them to recognise was that He had now brought something far, far better. God had now given them in Himself ‘true bread from Heaven', for ‘the Bread of God is that which comes down from Heaven and gives life to the world'. And those who partook of that would never die.
‘That which comes down'. Note the present tense. ‘That which is coming down'. Day by day He is among them as bread coming down from Heaven.
So they must take their minds off earthly food and satisfaction and concentrate on what God has now sent. They must remember that ‘man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God' (Matthew 4:4; Deuteronomy 8:3). They should recognise that He has sent Someone Who has come down from Heaven in His manhood, and is coming down from Heaven in His divine life, and is offering eternal life to the world. And as He has said before, He Himself was that One Who had come down from Heaven, so He was the true bread. But this is something that they were missing altogether.
We too need to stop and give ourselves the onceover. We too should ask, what is of most importance to us. Is our greatest desire to know Christ and to know God? Is our greatest longing food for our souls? Or do we see both as simply a means of advancing in this life, forgetting that our aim should be to ‘lay up treasure in Heaven'? (Matthew 6:19).