John 6:33

Cometh down. The form of the verb in the Greek implies a continuous act. These words speak of Jesus’ coming to this world as an eternal fact. (See, by contrast, on v. 38, 41). Up to this point the Jews had thought of Jesus as a giver of bread. Now He began to declare Himself to be the bread itself, though at this point, in the Greek, the statement may be taken as applying either to the bread or to Christ. That the Jews understood Jesus to refer to the bread as that “which cometh down” is clear from their reply in v. 34. At the same time Jewish thinking was not entirely unprepared for a more spiritual concept.

Life. Gr. zoe. See on chs. 1:4; 8:51; 10:10. As physical bread promotes physical life, so Christ, “the bread of God ... which cometh down from heaven,” is the source of spiritual life.