The Bread Of Life

Feature 3 – February 2014 — Grace & Truth Magazine

BREAD Of Life

The fact that our Lord Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000 is the only one of His miracles reported in all four gospels, together with His extensive teaching on the Bread of Life (Jn. 6), makes the event something of an icon of His earthly ministry – a symbol and classic demonstration of His identity, power and the purpose of coming. He came to give and to be the bread of eternal life; to fulfill all that was typified in the Old Testament manna, and much more.

As John tells the story, following this memorable miracle many of the well-fed crowd tracked the Lord Jesus down and gathered around Him, trying to make conversation. But He confronted their true, mundane motives: “You are seeking Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill” (Jn. 6:26 ESV). Being the fallen creatures that we are, we are driven by our cravings for gratification, including legitimate things like daily food, while suppressing or ignoring our deeper, core hunger for the fulfillment that only comes from God. Our Savior needed to expose that self-deception before He could reveal Himself and His true mission.

Two Kinds Of Bread, Two Kinds Of Hunger
Then He continued: “Do not labor 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” (v.27).

The crowd, though still in deep denial of their own true need, asked, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” The question is a good one. But when the Lord Jesus answered, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent,” their cynicism surfaced in a demand: “What sign do You do, that we may see and believe You? What work do You perform?” (vv.28-30).

Then they introduced the subject of the bread of life, referring to the manna from heaven given to their forefathers in the desert (v.31). To this Jesus responded, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Again the unbelieving crowd responded, still unaware of their real need and the true provision for their deepest hunger, “Sir, give us this bread always” (vv.32-34).

The Great “I Am” – Our Bread Of Life!
The Lord then introduces Himself as that bread: “I am the Bread of Life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst ... I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me ... For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise Him up on the last day” (vv.35-40). Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life! He is available and offers Himself to all. But that crowd soon turned from cynical to hostile. Knowing all about His human history, they rejected His claim. How could they accept Him as having come from heaven?

Yet He patiently and graciously continued, saying, “I am the Bread of Life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh” (vv.48-51).

How Is Your Appetite?
They could not “stomach” it: “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” they said (v.60). And “after this many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him” (v.66). What irony! Many of His “disciples,” offended at His teaching and the offering of Himself as the true Bread of Life come down from heaven, proved that their “discipleship” was superficial and tentative.

What a contrast with the Twelve! When Jesus asked them, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter responded for the group with the second of his three glowing confessions of Christ’s true identity: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that You are the Holy One of God” (vv.66-69). The very words that the fickle crowd found offensive proved to be the main attraction for sincere, committed followers. Here at last is a genuine appetite for the true bread from heaven!

In the Old Testament there was little room for unbelief to negate the manna’s effectiveness. The people had no choice and few distractions. They were hungry and the manna was the only food in sight. They collected it each morning and ate it. It was their bread of life, but it was not the bread of eternal life, though the teaching for faith is still valid. Jesus Himself pointed out to the crowd in John 6 that “your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died” (v.49). Manna sustained physical life but it could not impart nor nourish spiritual life. In Hebrews we learn that those rebellious Israelites, by constantly testing and provoking God, were “always go[ing] astray in their heart” (Heb. 3:10). And we are warned to “take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart ... but exhort one another every day ... that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (vv.12-13). They did not simply die by natural causes in the desert. They died because of their rebellious unbelief at the time of the unfaithful spies’ report (Num. 13-14) and after, during the ensuing 38 years. “So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief” (Heb. 3:19). No faith was needed to benefit from the physical bread, but manna was the lesson that ought to have turned their eyes and hearts to the God who supplied it. “It was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven,” Jesus said, “but My Father” (Jn. 6:32). However, that lesson was never learned. In spite of eating “spiritual food” with Moses, because of their lack of true faith or trust in a miraculous God and His word, they ultimately perished (see 1 Cor. 10:1-6). So that entire generation had to die before the next generation could finally inherit the Promised Land (Num. 14:32-35).

Bread Alone Does Not Sustain Life
Later, in Moses’ review of their 40-year odyssey, he recorded this explanatory reminder: “He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (Dt. 8:3). It was the word of the LORD, not the manna, that really sustained them through those 40 years.

Our Lord Jesus Christ cited the above passage when Satan tempted Him in a state of extreme physical hunger and deprivation, stating that His deepest hunger was for the word of His God and Father. He depended primarily not on physical food but on that word for His strength, health, sustenance and marching orders. The difference between “bread alone” and the Bread of Life is the source. Material bread, the “daily bread” for which we give thanks, is of earthly origin and nourishes and sustains our physical bodies. The Bread of Life is a Person of heavenly quality, character and origin: “He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (Jn. 6:33).

“Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died,” Jesus told His challengers (Jn. 6:49). Earlier He had reminded them of this great distinction when He said, “Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life” (Jn. 6:27). Mankind’s deepest need is for eternal life and the food that sustains it. Both come from heaven, or “from above.” Our Lord Jesus said of Himself that He “comes from above” (Jn. 3:31). He gives us life that is “born from above” – the same Greek word (Jn. 3:3,7). God, His Father and ours, also gives us “every good gift and every perfect gift ... from above” and wisdom “from above” (Jas. 1:17; 3:17). The source of our new nature and all that serves and sustains it comes “from above.”

Of another aspect of spiritual nourishment Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work” (Jn. 4:34). His effort and energy in serving His Father’s will was also a source of nourishment to Him. Will that work today for us, too? Absolutely!

Are We Truly Hungry For God’s Bread?
A reference to manna in Psalm 81 also has a lesson for us with respect to spiritual food: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. But My people did not listen to My voice ... Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways! ... He would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you” (vv.10-11,13,16). The food that nourishes our spiritual life is freely given to us by God. How hungry are we for this miraculous provision that sustains our spiritual vitality and energizes us to live for God and serve Him? That spiritual food, of course, is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ – “the true bread from heaven” (Jn. 6:32). Are we always truly hungry for Him, feeding on Him, nourishing our souls with Him, growing stronger and more like Him and exhibiting more and more of His nature and character? Or are we too distracted by our earthly surroundings, not listening to our God, denying our spiritual hunger and ignoring the perfect nutrition He offers?

Back in Exodus, in the desert of Sinai, when the bread from heaven first appeared, the Israelites asked, “What is it?” (Ex.16:15). That question is actually the word “manna.” Their initial curious inquiry became the name of the food that sustained them in the wilderness. But at the end of that time, when they had gathered and eaten the heavenly food daily for 40 years, they were still calling it ”What is it?” Does this suggest that it is possible for us to become so accustomed to and casual about the “true bread from heaven,” our Lord Jesus Christ, that we don’t really get to know Him intimately as He wants to be known?

The manna can be viewed as a symbol of the incarnation. God cannot be known as God apart from His personal revelation through the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ who came from heaven in a human, spiritually “digestible” form. We must have continuous, intimate association and interaction with Him. We need to take Him into our being daily as the manna that sustains and continually energizes us spiritually, so that we truly live the life of God in the midst of a world that rejects Him.

The superabundance of the seemingly meager supply of bread, multiplied for over 5,000 hungry listeners, points to the unfailing limitlessness of the sufficiency of our true bread from heaven. Our hunger can never crave more than is available for our need in Him. Our problem is that we are not hungry enough!

By Bill Van Ryn