Lord’s Day, Vol. 6 No. 34
Bread of Life
Jesus says in John 6:48, 51, “48 I am the Bread of life… 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world…
Jesus tells us that He is the Bread of life. Like the manna that miraculously fed the Israelites during the Exodus, He, likewise, came from heaven. However, He provides that perpetual feeding whereas the manna provided only a temporal feeding to their forefathers whilst they were in the wilderness. The feeding that Jesus Himself supplies does not cease. Jesus imparts eternal life. Jesus uses an example in the physical realm to explain the spiritual realm. Jesus illustrated that power when He fed the 5000 besides women and children with five loaves and two fishes.
John 6:53-54 “53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.54Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day…”
The Bread refers to His flesh and blood. In the eating, imparts everlasting life. Here, Jesus is not speaking literally of eating His body and blood. The Jews who heard Jesus left Him because it contradicted their understanding of the Scriptures – they were forbidden in the Mosaic law to eat blood.
Leviticus 3:17 says, “It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.”
Rather, Jesus was referring spiritually (v63) to the breaking of His body and the shedding of His blood for the remission of men’s sins. He speaks of His coming death upon the cross and resurrection from the dead three days later. And the imparting of eternal life comes through faith in Him, for He is the only Mediator between God and man.
1 Timothy 2:5 “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
John 6:57-58, 63, “57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever… 63 It is the spirit that quickenth, the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, they are life.”
As such, partaking of the Bread of life means to have faith the Person of Jesus Christ – 9That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Rom. 10:9-10 KJV)
When we received Jesus into our hearts as Lord and Saviour, through repentance and confession of sins, we become a child of God. Jesus, living in us, through the Holy Spirit, is that Bread of life that energizes us spiritually. We have spiritual life, that life of communion with our Father in heaven through Jesus Christ through prayer. And the life of Jesus, that Bread of life, feeds us so that we are nourished – the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, they are life(v63b).
Feeding upon God’s Word imparts life to us as the Holy Spirit through the Word strengthens us spiritually. Are you feeding upon Jesus, the Bread of life, daily for your spiritually sustenance?
1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
There is that continual cleansing for sins by His blood that comes to us in our feeding upon Him. As the Bible says, “the life is in the blood”. The cells in our body are sustained by the supply of blood just as the spiritual body is sustained by the cleansing flow of the blood of Christ.
Leviticus 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
Romans 5:11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.
There is joy in life with God as we daily feed upon Jesus, the Bread of life. Amen.
Yours lovingly,
Pastor Lek Aik Wee