I AM the Bread of Life |
| by David A. DePra |
| I am the Bread of Life. Your fathers did eat manna in the |
| wilderness, and are dead. This is the Bread which comes down |
| from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. |
| I am the Living Bread which came down from heaven. If any man |
| eat of this Bread, he shall live forever, and the bread that I will |
| give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. |
| The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, "How can |
| this man give us His flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, |
| "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the Son |
| of Man, and drink His Blood, you have no life in you. Whoso eats |
| My flesh, and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him |
| up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is |
| drink indeed. He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells |
| in Me, and I in Him. |
| As the Living Father has sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he |
| that eats Me, even he shall live by Me. This is that bread which |
| came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, |
| and are dead. He that eats of this Bread shall live forever. (John |
| 6:48-58) |
| Seven times in the gospel of John, Jesus makes an "I am" |
| statement. He refers to Himself by saying such things as: "I AM |
| the resurrection and the life." These "I am" statements tell us |
| much about the nature and character of Christ; His purpose and |
| His way of working with us. They are reminescent of the time |
| when God told Abraham His name. He said His name was, "I |
| AM." Among other things, this showed God to be the eternal, all |
| knowing, one and only God. |
| In the sixth chapter of John, Jesus says, "I am the Bread of |
| Life." What does this mean for us today? What is Jesus saying |
| about His relationship to us through that statement? |
| The Living Bread From Heaven |
| In the time of Jesus, bread was the staff of life. It symbolized |
| the source of life because it was the primary means by which |
| those people survived. So when Jesus said, "I am the Bread of |
| Life," the people understood the importance He was accruing to |
| Himself. He was saying, "I am your daily spiritual food. In fact, I |
| am the only means by which you can live forever." |
| To the average Jew, this didn't make much sense. Afterall, |
| they were God's chosen people. Didn't their calling as such |
| already endow them with all they needed spiritually? Why did |
| they need a "bread of life?" They had Moses, Abraham, and the |
| law. Wasn't this enough? |
| You'll notice in John 6 that the Jews keep referring to Moses |
| and the manna in the wilderness. They had a strong tradition |
| that it was throught the merits of Moses that God fed them with |
| manna. They had perpetuated this tradition into the idea that it |
| was their keeping of the law as given through Moses that now |
| kept them in line for eternal life. So when Jesus said, "Moses |
| didn't give your fathers the manna. God gave it to them," it didn't |
| jive with their beliefs. And when He told them the wilderness |
| manna did not impart eternal life to anyone, it was a blow to their |
| nationalistic ego. Above all, when He stood there and said, "I AM |
| the true Bread of Life," it shocked them. He was not only directly |
| contradicting their beliefs about how they could obtain eternal |
| life, but He was replacing their law-keeping and adherence to |
| tradition with HIMSELF. |
| Jesus once said, "You search the scriptures because you |
| think that in them is eternal life. But you will not come to ME." |
| The Truth here is similar to the one Jesus is presenting in John. |
| All of our forms of religion and worship, no matter how Bible |
| based and otherwise profitable they may be, cannot replace HIM. |
| Jesus Christ is a real, living Person. He is, in fact, so real and |
| available to us, that He is able to picture Himself as common, |
| daily bread -- so simple a thing, and yet so vital. |
| Reality in Christ |
| It can be a difficult realization for some people, but it is the |
| Truth: Christianity is not a religion. It is not a list of doctrines to |
| believe in. It is not even a religion which grew out of the inspired |
| Word of God. Christianity is a relationship with a Person. It is a |
| redemptive experience with God through Jesus Christ. It is the |
| result of what happens when God comes down and makes |
| Himself one with man. |
| This is part of what Jesus was trying to tell us in John 6. He |
| was saying, "All of your religious exercises, no matter how good |
| they may be, cannot feed you. I am the Bread of Life. Come to |
| Me. Eat and drink my flesh and blood." |
| Jesus wasn't condemning religious things. But the danger in |
| those things is that they can serve as a substitute for the real. |
| God wants us to push past everything which speaks of Christ, |
| and points to Christ, and reminds us of Christ, to Christ Himself. |
| He alone is the true Bread. |
| If it were possible to trace the history of the Christian church |
| back to the beginning, we would find that the fundamental |
| reason it got off the track was that it substituted some form of |
| "Christian religion" for the Living Christ. This always results in |
| dead religion and ritual. The only solution is to return to Christ |
| Himself. For He says, "I am the Living Bread. I alone can feed |
| you. I alone am your Source of life." |
| Eating and Drinking |
| As Jesus began to reveal to the crowds that He was the Bread |
| of life, they couldn't seem to rid themselves of the notion that He |
| was speaking about the physical. They took everything He said |
| literally. Despite the fact that Jesus told them, "The words which I |
| speak to you, they are spirit, and they are life." (Jn. 6:63), they |
| continued to interpret Him naturally. Even His own disciples |
| could not see that He was speaking to them spiritually. As a |
| result, they could not understand what He meant when He said |
| He was the Bread of Life. They had no clue as to what He meant |
| when He said they actually had to "eat" His flesh and "drink" His |
| Blood. |
| For us to understand what Jesus meant, we need only extract |
| Jesus' own explaination from the passage: |
| He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, |
| dwells in Me, and I in him. |
| When I eat or drink something, it becomes part of me. Only |
| that which is waste passes through me. But symbolically, there |
| would be no waste in eating and drinking the Son of God. All of |
| Him would become part of me. Thus, when Jesus talks of eating |
| and drinking His flesh and blood, He is talking about Himself |
| becoming ONE with us. He is describing a complete intergration |
| of His being with ours. |
| So often we think of Jesus as being "separate" from us, sort of |
| like He is "way off in heaven." But while Jesus is a separate, |
| distinct personality and being, and we will always maintain our |
| individual identity as well, we must never let these facts distort |
| the reality that we are ONE with Jesus Christ. Indeed, we are so |
| much ONE with Him that Jesus is able to liken Himself as Bread |
| and wine which we are to eat and drink. |
| Food, as stated, becomes part of us. But it also sustains us, |
| invading with nourishment every cell of our body. There is no |
| area of our physical body which is not affected by what we eat |
| and drink. We've all heard the expression, "You are what you |
| eat." It is true. Such is the oneness and the continual |
| co-existance we are to have with the Living Bread. |
| Identification and Communion |
| It is not a coincidence that Jesus says, "Except you eat the |
| flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, you have no life in |
| you," and then later uses the same symbolism in instituting the |
| Lord's Supper. In fact, Paul says, "As often as you eat this Bread |
| and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death until He |
| comes." (I Cor 11:26) The relationship between Jesus as the |
| Bread of Life, and the Lord's Supper, is a direct one. |
| Paul is actually showing us what eating and drinking the flesh |
| and Blood of Jesus means in a practical sense. He is showing |
| us that it means more than just an outward proclamation of the |
| fact Jesus died. Indeed, Paul is saying, "To proclaim the Lord's |
| death you must allow it to become YOUR death." Not just in |
| theory. And not merely in doctrinal or ritualistic form. But really. |
| In other words, REAL communioin means you proclaim the Lord's |
| death by experiencing His death in YOUR life. The actual |
| taking of the bread and wine is merely symbolic of that fact. |
| So often we think of the death of Christ as a doctrine we must |
| believe in. But even though doctrine is important, and certainly |
| vital with regard to the death of Christ, doctrine can't save us. If I |
| believe every right doctrine there is, those doctrines, and my |
| belief in them, cannot substitute for experiencing the REALITY |
| behind them. Such is the case with the death of Christ. I can |
| proclaim by written or spoken doctrine the death of Christ. I can |
| even proclaim it by participating in a communion service. But |
| until His death actually begins to invade ME, and bury my old |
| man in Adam -- experientially -- I am not really proclaiming |
| anything. No matter how loud I shout the words. |
| The Bible tells us that we are buried with Christ by baptism |
| into death. It says that we are planted into His death, that is, |
| "engrafted" into His death. (see Romans 6) It says the same |
| thing about His resurrection. Therefore, should we not expect |
| that the death which Jesus experienced would impact us in a |
| very REAL way? Should we not expect that His death would be |
| more than a doctrine to believe in, but instead, a death we must |
| also partake of by experience? |
| Yes. In fact, the death of Jesus Christ is to invade every part |
| of us, just as eating bread invades every cell of our body. The |
| death of Christ has ALREADY put our old man to death. But now |
| this death is to invade our members, indeed, our entire being, so |
| that it might be worked out in practical experience. Only then His |
| resurrection be likewise made manifest in us. |
| Doesn't it seem odd that Jesus, on the one hand, proclaims |
| Himself the Bread of Life which gives life to the world, yet on the |
| other hand, says that eating the Bread with represents His Body |
| is a proclamation of His death? |
| Not if we understand that the only path to life which God |
| offers us is through death. If we "eat" Jesus Christ, the Bread of |
| Life, it will result in the death of everything we are in Adam. But it |
| will also result in the resurrection of the new man in Christ Jesus. |
| Oneness With Christ |
| The Bible talks much about "Christ in you." But it talks just as |
| much about being "in Christ." Again, we see a oneness. We see |
| a complete identification and integration of the fundament of our |
| being with that of our Saviour. |
| Notice the way in which the Bible speaks of our oneness with |
| Jesus Christ: |
"We are flesh of His flesh, and bone of His bones." |
| "For you are all one in Christ Jesus." |
| The point is, we are part of Him. Not just in a poetic way or a |
| doctrinal way. But really. Our spiritual life processes are one |
| with Him. Indeed, we derive ours from His. |
| This was made possible when God planted all of humankind |
| into Jesus Christ on the Cross. At that point, the perfect Son of |
| Man, the last Adam, became one with all of us -- the collective |
| first Adam. And if we "eat and drink" of Christ, continually partake |
| of Him as the Living Bread, then everything He is, and which He |
| accomplished, likewise impacts us. Not just in theory. Not just |
| doctrinally. But really. At work in us is a "death and resurrection" |
| process which is geared to conforming us to the death and |
| resurrection of Christ, and as a result, will conform us to His |
| image. |
| Thus we see the reality of Christianity. Christianity is not a list |
| of doctrines to believe in. It is a relationship with a Living |
| Saviour. It is not a "joining a church." It is a joining with Jesus |
| Christ, the True Bread which has come down from heaven. * |