Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”
A crowd has come looking for Jesus after He fed them. He does not welcome their eagerness. He exposes what drove it. His answer sets two kinds of food side by side. He names Himself as the giver of the lasting kind. Then He points to a mark the Father has placed on Him alone.
The Motive Behind the Search
The Lord starts by reading their hearts. One writer sees the same pattern wherever people want Christ only for what He can do for daily life.
Hamilton SmithThey did not come because they felt any spiritual need, or because they saw the glory of His Person in the sign. They came because they ate the loaves and were filled. If Christ had met people's daily needs without raising any moral question about their condition before God, they would gladly have followed Him... People do not mind listening to sermons and hearing about Christ, as long as the Christ they hear about is only One who can improve the world and meet its daily needs.
What Counts as Food That Perishes
This is wider than bread. Anything that ends with this life belongs on the perishing side — even religious effort.
An Outline of Sound WordsThere might be a great religious show, and plenty of hard work, but sadly, it is for the food that perishes. Under the surface of religious activity, zeal and display, the heart's true motive is so often self and not Christ, present things and not eternal ones... every desire that is not for Christ will be for what comes to an end with the present life or order of things.
Work — but Not for Life Itself
One writer points to what the Lord did not say. There is something here for a person to do, but no one can give himself life.
Numerical Bible NotesThe Lord does not, and could not say, "Work for the life," but for the "food" of the life. The life itself is the basic, first gift, and only it makes any right working possible. The dead cannot work their way into life, but the Lord gives life by His voice... When they take Him to mean doing works, He tells them that God's work — the thing He wanted them to do — was to believe on Him whom He had sent.
The crowd's reply in the next verse missed the point. Another writer reads it as a picture of the human heart.
J. N. DarbyThe Lord told the Jews who had been drawn by His miracles, "Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life." What did they answer? They asked what they should do to work the works of God. Man with the veil on his heart is ready to do, but refuses a God who gives.
The Son of Man as Giver
The title Jesus uses here matters.
William KellyThe question is not about Messianic honour or blessing. It is about what the Son of Man has to give. He gives the food that lasts to eternal life, and man needs nothing less than this. It is as the Son of Man that God the Father sealed Him. Toil will not be enough, nor any apparent sincerity... nothing less can supply the need of lost man, whether Jew or Gentile.
The Father's Seal
The verse closes with a reason: the Father has set His seal on Him. One writer explains what that mark means.
Hamilton SmithHis distinguishing glory shows in one great fact: as the Son of Man, God the Father has sealed Him with the Holy Spirit. So the Father marks Him out from the whole human race as God's possession, and as the One who, as Man, is the Object of the Father's perfect approval and infinite delight.
Believers receive this seal too, but not at the same time and not on their own account.
W. TrotterBelievers are now, since the resurrection and ascension of the Lord, sealed; but it is in Christ that they are distinguished in this way. "In him you also... were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit."
Summary
- Motive exposed. They went looking for Him, yet it counted for nothing. The pull was the loaves, not the sign or the Person behind it.
- Two foods. Every desire that is not for Christ ends when this life ends. Only what He gives lasts to eternal life.
- Work, not wage. He never says work for the life. Life is the gift that makes right working possible. The work He names is to believe on the One God sent.
- The Giver. As Son of Man He gives the food that lasts to eternal life. No effort or sincerity can take His place.
- Sealed. The Father set His mark on the Son of Man as the object of His perfect delight. That seal now rests on believers too — but only in Christ.