"51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live for ever.” 59 Jesussaid these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum."
John 6:51-59
We should notice the sequence in the sections of our Lord's teaching. First, He speaks of the bread that comes down from heaven; then He claims to be that bread, indicating that it is found only in fellowship with Him. Now, in 51-59, He takes the discussion a step further and points out that fellowship with Him will necessarily mean fellowship of death. This is where the bread of life is found. There can be only one meaning for Jesus’ words in 51, 53. They are couched in sacrificial terminology, and they imply violent death. It is the giving of Himself in death that makes Him the bread of life to the world. The bread must be broken before it can become food for men. This focusing of blessing to men on the death He was to die is quite central to the theology of the gospel, and indeed is a fundamental presupposition of everything John and the other gospel writers record. Every miracle Jesus wrought, every work of power, whether in the realm of nature or of disease or the dark underworld of spirits, owed its virtue to the death He was to die when His hour was come. They were performed on the strength of that death. It is not too much to say that every possibility of divine blessing anywhere in the universe centres upon that death and partakes of its grace. This is the point that Jesus is making. Not to understand this is simply not to understand the meaning of the gospel.