Feasting on Jesus, the Bread of Life!
John 6:22-58
Now that I have your attention, let me explain what I am talking about! The theme of this section of John is bread. The setting is after the feeding of the 5000. It is sad that the miracle gets all the press and the rest of the chapter is for the most part ignored. The feeding miracle is merely the preface to far more important matters! But back to the setting. After the people have had a good night sleep on a full belly, they go looking for Jesus the next morning. But He is no where to be found. When they find he has gone to the other side of the lake, they follow Him.
Notice that Jesus answered the question of their hearts, not their lips. The signs were to testify to His fulfillment of prophecy, but they missed that. They just wanted more bread. The professed people of God have changed very little. Most are far more are interested in Jesus as the Cosmic Vending Machine than in Who He really Is. Jesus sets about to reveal to them Who He Is through this metaphor of "bread".
Before we plunge into the bread theme, we must be aware that Jesus actually has four truths that He is hammering home through the bread metaphor. They are, #1 the sending of the Father, #2 belief, #3 Son of Man, and #4 His flesh. We will visit each one as our discussion develops, but be aware that each is integral to our understanding of the "Bread message".
What kind of bread is He talking about? Jesus has just done a pretty impressive "bread" feat, but the people have some pretty impressive bread stories in their history. Their forefathers were fed in the desert by manna, bread from heaven. But Jesus sets the record straight (vs 32), manna wasn't the real bread from heaven. It was merely a gracious, temporary provision for a physical need. "My Father gives you the True Bread from heaven." Here is the first emphasis—the True Bread is given by His Heavenly Father! Jesus never lets the people or us forget that He was continually doing the will "of Him Who sent Me." (vs 38-40, 44, 57) The True Bread is sent from the "heavenly oven" of the master Father baker who never confuses stones for bread!! (Mt 7:9-11) This Divine, Eternal Nourishment is available to us because of the will and design of the Father in Heaven. Forget the fire breathing God who is ready to smash you into a little grease spot! NO, NO, Come to the compassionate Heavenly Father who went to such an elaborate length to save sinners while maintaining His perfect Righteousness and Holiness! How? By sending His own Son in the flesh for unworthy humans.
Do the only work that pleases Him! "Believe on Him Whom He has sent" (vs 29) And this brings us to the second truth calling out to us in this text. Belief!! Jesus is about to lay some radical and disturbing teaching on them, and He expects them to believe Him. He is not asking them to believe "stuff", He is asking them to believe in Him! "Believe" is mentioned five times and each time it is clearly belief "In Him". Why this "in Him" emphasis? Because there is something very special about Him, in His very Being!
Here is our third truth, the Son of Man. We are to believe in Jesus as the Son of Man. As the NIV Study Bible says, "Son of Man is Jesus' most common title for Himself. It is used 81 times in the gospels and never of any one else." This Name, this Office as the old saints would say, encapsulates the whole of the Glorious Plan of Redemption that was in the bosom of Jehovah from all eternity. "This great and blessed event lay in the breast of Jehovah in eternity. He ever had it in His heart; it was His beloved plan and purpose that He would take (be made)
flesh, and display all the glories of His Godhead in the Person of Jesus Christ. This was His gracious will and everlasting counsel." (William Romaine 1714-1795) This name, "Son of Man", points us to the beginning of time, to that awful divorce that occurred in the Garden, that willful act of disobedience that separated man from his Creator. The original sons of man ushered in death and bloodshed. But the prophecy of Gen 3:15 promises an offspring from the woman's womb that would crush the head of the serpent, destroy the destroyer. This "seed" theme flows throughout the pages of the bible. Paul tells us that the seed of Abraham, the lineage of that seed that should come, is Christ.(Gal 3:16) This Jesus, this bread giver, is the promised seed of the woman, born of a woman (Luke 2, Hebrews 2), the Son of Man who alone could destroy the destroyer! Pay attention—The Son of Man name identifies this One sent by the Father above inseparably with mankind. When Christ was baptized and the Spirit descended upon Him as a dove, the Father announced His Divine Pleasure on the Man Christ Jesus. He was presenting to all humanity the only Human in Whom He is pleased. The Heavenly Father has no pleasure in any other human. That is why we must be found in Him, the Son of Man, not having our own righteousness which of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.(Phil. 3:9) Eighty one times, Jesus proclaims Himself to be this Son of Man, this Man from God, this God/Man who alone can, has, and will please the Father! This truth is foundational to our spiritual growth, our rest (Mt 11:28-30), our peace, and our eternal hope.
So what are we to do with this Son of Man? And that brings us back to the bread theme. What do we do with bread? We eat it. So what does Jesus say about the bread of life? First of all, He is the Bread of God, the Bread of Life. He is the eternal Nourishment sent from the Father to a starving humanity! But He takes this bread thing a step farther. In verse 51 Jesus says, "the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." Now we get uncomfortable. This is not a tidy truth. The early church was accused of cannibalism because of this truth. The Catholic church tries to make this physical in their mass. "Then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him." (John 6:53-56) But there it is, an uncomfortable and often avoided truth from the lips of our Lord. But we avoid or ignore it to our spiritual famine.
So what is this graphic feast that our Lord is dragging us to? What do flesh and blood describe? Humanity!!! Jesus has flesh and blood—He is fully human. He is sent from God, and as it says in Colossians 2:9, in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is also fully God. But in John 6, Jesus is identifying Himself inseparably with humanity as the Son of Man. It is His commentary of Hebrews 2:14, "Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil." So what is this eating, this feasting that makes us nervous? The answer has been given back in verse 29, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." God the Father sent the Bread from Heaven, this perfect Human Loaf, so that we might never hunger again. He has done all that the Father requires! (Matt. 3:15) He has been tempted in every area just as we are. (Matt. 4:1-11) He knows our every infirmity.(Hebrews 4:15) And like the original sons of men, He suffered bloodshed and death. But here is a beautiful twist. He tasted death for every man (Heb 2:9). Before Jesus, death was the end of all "taste". But Jesus tasted the awful putrifying flavor of death. But that horrible taste was washed away by the Glory of the Father as He arose from the dead for our salvation. (Romans 6:4) He is The Man, the One Who meets our need and Who alone gives us access to our Heavenly Father.(John 14:6, Heb. 4:16) We are commanded to believe in Him. He is the One who perfectly fulfills the law and all its demands. He is our only avenue of obedience that will please the Father in Heaven. Paul says in Philippians 3:3 that we are never ever to have any confidence in our flesh! We are to put our full confidence in His Flesh! His alone is satisfactory, His alone in sufficient. We are to believe this truth with our whole hearts. He is the Son of Man, and we are to eat His flesh and drink His blood, because it is only as we place our faith in His Perfect Humanity that our humanity ever has a chance of coming to the Father! Remember, Jesus, the Son of Man is alone, the Father's pleasure. Believe in Him whom He sent!!!
John 6:22-58
Now that I have your attention, let me explain what I am talking about! The theme of this section of John is bread. The setting is after the feeding of the 5000. It is sad that the miracle gets all the press and the rest of the chapter is for the most part ignored. The feeding miracle is merely the preface to far more important matters! But back to the setting. After the people have had a good night sleep on a full belly, they go looking for Jesus the next morning. But He is no where to be found. When they find he has gone to the other side of the lake, they follow Him.
Notice that Jesus answered the question of their hearts, not their lips. The signs were to testify to His fulfillment of prophecy, but they missed that. They just wanted more bread. The professed people of God have changed very little. Most are far more are interested in Jesus as the Cosmic Vending Machine than in Who He really Is. Jesus sets about to reveal to them Who He Is through this metaphor of "bread".
Before we plunge into the bread theme, we must be aware that Jesus actually has four truths that He is hammering home through the bread metaphor. They are, #1 the sending of the Father, #2 belief, #3 Son of Man, and #4 His flesh. We will visit each one as our discussion develops, but be aware that each is integral to our understanding of the "Bread message".
What kind of bread is He talking about? Jesus has just done a pretty impressive "bread" feat, but the people have some pretty impressive bread stories in their history. Their forefathers were fed in the desert by manna, bread from heaven. But Jesus sets the record straight (vs 32), manna wasn't the real bread from heaven. It was merely a gracious, temporary provision for a physical need. "My Father gives you the True Bread from heaven." Here is the first emphasis—the True Bread is given by His Heavenly Father! Jesus never lets the people or us forget that He was continually doing the will "of Him Who sent Me." (vs 38-40, 44, 57) The True Bread is sent from the "heavenly oven" of the master Father baker who never confuses stones for bread!! (Mt 7:9-11) This Divine, Eternal Nourishment is available to us because of the will and design of the Father in Heaven. Forget the fire breathing God who is ready to smash you into a little grease spot! NO, NO, Come to the compassionate Heavenly Father who went to such an elaborate length to save sinners while maintaining His perfect Righteousness and Holiness! How? By sending His own Son in the flesh for unworthy humans.
Do the only work that pleases Him! "Believe on Him Whom He has sent" (vs 29) And this brings us to the second truth calling out to us in this text. Belief!! Jesus is about to lay some radical and disturbing teaching on them, and He expects them to believe Him. He is not asking them to believe "stuff", He is asking them to believe in Him! "Believe" is mentioned five times and each time it is clearly belief "In Him". Why this "in Him" emphasis? Because there is something very special about Him, in His very Being!
Here is our third truth, the Son of Man. We are to believe in Jesus as the Son of Man. As the NIV Study Bible says, "Son of Man is Jesus' most common title for Himself. It is used 81 times in the gospels and never of any one else." This Name, this Office as the old saints would say, encapsulates the whole of the Glorious Plan of Redemption that was in the bosom of Jehovah from all eternity. "This great and blessed event lay in the breast of Jehovah in eternity. He ever had it in His heart; it was His beloved plan and purpose that He would take (be made)
flesh, and display all the glories of His Godhead in the Person of Jesus Christ. This was His gracious will and everlasting counsel." (William Romaine 1714-1795) This name, "Son of Man", points us to the beginning of time, to that awful divorce that occurred in the Garden, that willful act of disobedience that separated man from his Creator. The original sons of man ushered in death and bloodshed. But the prophecy of Gen 3:15 promises an offspring from the woman's womb that would crush the head of the serpent, destroy the destroyer. This "seed" theme flows throughout the pages of the bible. Paul tells us that the seed of Abraham, the lineage of that seed that should come, is Christ.(Gal 3:16) This Jesus, this bread giver, is the promised seed of the woman, born of a woman (Luke 2, Hebrews 2), the Son of Man who alone could destroy the destroyer! Pay attention—The Son of Man name identifies this One sent by the Father above inseparably with mankind. When Christ was baptized and the Spirit descended upon Him as a dove, the Father announced His Divine Pleasure on the Man Christ Jesus. He was presenting to all humanity the only Human in Whom He is pleased. The Heavenly Father has no pleasure in any other human. That is why we must be found in Him, the Son of Man, not having our own righteousness which of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.(Phil. 3:9) Eighty one times, Jesus proclaims Himself to be this Son of Man, this Man from God, this God/Man who alone can, has, and will please the Father! This truth is foundational to our spiritual growth, our rest (Mt 11:28-30), our peace, and our eternal hope.
So what are we to do with this Son of Man? And that brings us back to the bread theme. What do we do with bread? We eat it. So what does Jesus say about the bread of life? First of all, He is the Bread of God, the Bread of Life. He is the eternal Nourishment sent from the Father to a starving humanity! But He takes this bread thing a step farther. In verse 51 Jesus says, "the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." Now we get uncomfortable. This is not a tidy truth. The early church was accused of cannibalism because of this truth. The Catholic church tries to make this physical in their mass. "Then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him." (John 6:53-56) But there it is, an uncomfortable and often avoided truth from the lips of our Lord. But we avoid or ignore it to our spiritual famine.
So what is this graphic feast that our Lord is dragging us to? What do flesh and blood describe? Humanity!!! Jesus has flesh and blood—He is fully human. He is sent from God, and as it says in Colossians 2:9, in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is also fully God. But in John 6, Jesus is identifying Himself inseparably with humanity as the Son of Man. It is His commentary of Hebrews 2:14, "Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil." So what is this eating, this feasting that makes us nervous? The answer has been given back in verse 29, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." God the Father sent the Bread from Heaven, this perfect Human Loaf, so that we might never hunger again. He has done all that the Father requires! (Matt. 3:15) He has been tempted in every area just as we are. (Matt. 4:1-11) He knows our every infirmity.(Hebrews 4:15) And like the original sons of men, He suffered bloodshed and death. But here is a beautiful twist. He tasted death for every man (Heb 2:9). Before Jesus, death was the end of all "taste". But Jesus tasted the awful putrifying flavor of death. But that horrible taste was washed away by the Glory of the Father as He arose from the dead for our salvation. (Romans 6:4) He is The Man, the One Who meets our need and Who alone gives us access to our Heavenly Father.(John 14:6, Heb. 4:16) We are commanded to believe in Him. He is the One who perfectly fulfills the law and all its demands. He is our only avenue of obedience that will please the Father in Heaven. Paul says in Philippians 3:3 that we are never ever to have any confidence in our flesh! We are to put our full confidence in His Flesh! His alone is satisfactory, His alone in sufficient. We are to believe this truth with our whole hearts. He is the Son of Man, and we are to eat His flesh and drink His blood, because it is only as we place our faith in His Perfect Humanity that our humanity ever has a chance of coming to the Father! Remember, Jesus, the Son of Man is alone, the Father's pleasure. Believe in Him whom He sent!!!