John 6:28,29

The brief dialogue which follows bears upon the true means of obtaining this really desirable good, the food which abides; it is the true mode of ἐργάζεσθαι (working).

Vv. 28, 29. “ They said therefore to Him: What must we do, to do the works of God? 29. Jesus answered and said to them: This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent. ”

As Jesus had said: “Labor (literally, work),” the hearers, believing that they entered into His thought, ask Him: How work? In what do these works to be done for obtaining the food which Thou offerest consist? They call them the works of God, as being demanded by God as the condition of this gift. They start herein from the legal point of view, and see in these works to be done a work for which the miraculous food is the payment. It is impossible for me to see that there can be anything “grotesque” or improbable in this answer of the Jews (Reuss). It corresponds with many questions of the same kind in the Synoptics. (Matthew 19:16; Luke 10:25, etc.) Jesus, in His turn, enters into this idea of works to be done; only He reduces them all to a single one: the work, in contrast to the works (John 6:28).

This work is faith in Him; in other terms: the gift of God is to be, not deserved, but simply accepted. Faith in Him whom God sends to communicate it is the sole condition for receiving it. It is evident that, in this context, the genitive τοῦ θεοῦ, of God, designates, not the author of the work (Augustine), but the one with reference to whom it is done: the question is of the work which God requires. What is called Paulinism is implied in this answer, which may be called the point of union between Paul and James. Faith is really a work, the highest work, for by it man gives himself, and a free being cannot do anything greater than to give himself. It is in this sense that James opposes work to a faith which is only a dead intellectual belief; as it is in an analogous sense, that St. Paul opposes faith to works of mere observance. The living faith of Paul is, at the foundation, the living work of James, according to that sovereign formula of Jesus: “ This is the work of God, that ye believe. ” With the discussion of the true human work which leads to the possession of the heavenly gift is connected a new one on the way to the attaining of faith. The Jews think that in order to this end, there is need for them of new miracles. Jesus declares to them that the true sign is present; it is Himself.