Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
The fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and all died, for though it miraculously sustained their bodily life for forty years it could give only temporal life and not everlasting life or immortality. In contrast to that dead manna, Jesus himself is the true bread, the bread of life, the living bread come down from heaven, so that a man may eat and not die but live forever, be raised up at the last day and receive immortal life. The bread He gives for the life of the world is His flesh given in death as the propitiation for sin, provided at infinite cost by inexpressible love. To eat His flesh and drink His blood is not a literal act but to truly believe on Him and receive Him as personal Saviour, becoming one with Him and living by Him. That eating means receiving and assimilating His words into mind, heart and life, studying, obeying and practicing them through the Spirit, for His words are spirit and life while mere hearing without doing brings death.
Setting and Hearers Response
Jesus spoke these words in the synagogue at Capernaum where He presented Himself as the bread of life. The discourse followed the miracle in which by creative power He increased five barley loaves and two small fishes to feed five thousand men besides women and children and directed that the fragments be gathered that nothing be lost, and it followed His walking on the water. Its purpose was to lift minds from temporal food and from the miracle of the loaves to higher spiritual truth.
The crowd demanding a sign threw back at Him the manna eaten by their fathers, as it is written He gave them bread from heaven to eat. He Himself had conducted the Hebrews through the wilderness and had daily fed them that manna from heaven, yet they blindly referred Him to His own miracle. Their caviling showed blind unbelief, pride and self-righteousness that could not grasp its meaning.
The teaching challenged those who followed for hope of an earthly kingdom and for the temporal benefits of food, for His service offered no promise of worldly reward and understanding His message brought a closer test. It tested those who claimed to be His disciples, offended many, and their response showed that they rejected truth when it reproved them and exposed lives out of harmony with righteousness. Eternal life and entrance into God's kingdom require more than seeking the temporary benefits of food.
Many hearers and some who had professed to follow Him turned away from Him because of this discourse. The Twelve did not turn away then, and Peter speaking for them declared loyalty to Christ.
Manna's Temporary Gift
The manna sustained Israel's physical, temporal, bodily life in the wilderness, yet all the fathers who ate it still died, for it could not give everlasting life or immortality. It kept them only for a time and did not keep them from death, standing in contrast to Christ the bread from heaven whose words are spirit and life and who gives eternal life to those who receive Him by faith. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is spiritual experience and true earnest belief, receiving Christ and living by His word, which is not a substitute for Scripture whose truth must be brought into practical life. Whoever believes in Him has everlasting life and will live forever, for He gives His flesh for the life of the world and raises up at the last day those who eat the living bread come down from heaven so that a man may eat and not die.
Though only temporal food for bodily necessity, the manna was a standing miracle called angels' food, corn of heaven, food provided by the angels. Israel ate it forty years until they came to the borders of Canaan, daily reminded of God's unfailing care and tender love. They were daily taught that having God's promise they were as secure from want as if surrounded by fields of grain. Both that bread from heaven given by God and the showbread kept ever before the Lord pointed to Christ, the living bread ever in the presence of God for men, acknowledging man's dependence on God for temporal food and spiritual blessings received only through His mediation.
Moses did not give the true bread from heaven, and the bread from heaven can be obtained from no human agent. God the Father gives the true living bread through the gift of Christ, which endures unto everlasting life and gives life to the world. Christ does not overlook physical needs and will provide food to satisfy bodily necessities, as shown when by creative power He increased five barley loaves and two small fishes to feed five thousand men besides women and children and directed that fragments be gathered that nothing be lost.
Even food miraculously provided by God for the body is perishable and of far less consequence than spiritual food. Chief labor and anxiety must be given not to perishable bread for physical sustenance but to believing on Him whom God sent and securing the living bread. For he that comes to Christ shall never hunger and he that believes on Him shall never thirst, nor thirst for higher food when truly receiving His Word.
Christ the Living Bread
In contrast to the dead manna, Jesus Himself is the true bread, the bread of life, the living bread come down from heaven which gives life to the world, so that a man may eat and not die but live forever. Whoever believes in Him has everlasting life by believing, will be raised up at the last day, and will ultimately receive immortal life of the body in God's kingdom and eat of the hidden manna as overcomers. This life is received by coming to Him, believing in Him, and taking His words into mind and heart, because His words are spirit and life, and this shapes the receiver in His spirit and character. To eat this bread is to receive Christ, become one with Him, dwell in Him with Him in the eater, and live by Him as He lives by the Father.
The bread He gives for the life of the world is His flesh given in approaching death as the true propitiation for human sin represented by the Passover lamb. It is a provision furnished by inexpressible love as a costly banquet with unsearchable inexhaustible resources prepared at infinite cost through His death. He is the representation to the world and to the church of the tree of life, the bread which comes down from heaven ever in the presence of God for men. Both that wilderness manna and the showbread kept ever before the Lord pointed to Him, acknowledging man's dependence on God for temporal food and spiritual blessings received only through His mediation.
His words are spirit and they are life while the flesh profits nothing and the Spirit gives life. The saying is not about literal physical flesh, and the disciples at first did not comprehend this. Physical food, even food miraculously provided by God, cannot give eternal life; life comes through believing in Christ and receiving His words for spiritual food and drink. The chapter presents the conditions of eternal life, and fully understanding and living by it leads to a life that measures with the life of God. With John 13-17 it is part of the plainly expressed will of God for His people, containing the divine antidote for the sin of the whole world.
It gives the definition of the righteousness of Christ that must be accepted to have on the wedding garment and to reach the standard of character required to be counted a fit guest at the wedding, which is the marriage of humanity with divinity. One who eats this bread may still die as Christ died, but the life of the Saviour is in him and his life is hid with Christ in God. Christ came to give life more abundantly and makes believers one with Him in this present life to be one with Him throughout all eternity.
Eating by Believing Faith
Eating his flesh and drinking his blood is a parable and figure, not a literal physical act, for true earnest belief and true receiving of him by faith as personal Saviour and Redeemer. To eat is to become one with him, to dwell in him with him dwelling in the eater, and to live by him as he lives by the Father. This eating gives eternal life and resurrection at the last day, for his words are spirit and they are life while the flesh profits nothing and the Spirit gives life.
Eating means receiving and assimilating his words and teachings into mind, heart and life through the Spirit. It is keeping his Word and truth before the mind, studying it, masticating it, drinking it in, understanding it and practicing it. It brings its principles home to the soul, obeys its precepts, does the Word, and lives by everything God has revealed.
This receiving is personal and experiential, not merely intellectual agreement as theory, not merely through another person or outward connection with a church, and not by human suppositions. It reaches the heart and will and brings thoughts into obedience to Christ. It requires looking constantly to Jesus, daily hourly faith that works by love and purifies the soul, prayer and communion with God, dependence on God rather than on human beings, and cherishing the Spirit by which he spoke. Mere hearing or reading without practicing brings death rather than life, with misconception, misapplication and misinterpretation, because man is unwilling to receive God's teaching. Eating is not a substitute for Scripture, whose truth must be brought into practical life.
Eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God is a real experience of having tasted that the Lord is gracious, learned as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that they may grow thereby, requiring true conversion and being born again. The lesson must be appreciated, received and practiced with deep insight and experience, taking the principles of the Word into daily life in connection with Christ who knew no sin. So received it is the stronghold and defense against Satan's deceptions and spiritual darkness in the last days. All who minister in word and doctrine need this consecration and depth of experience so they live religion and do not play religion.
Living the Word Daily
Those who feed in this way receive nourishment sufficient for all the needs of the soul and grow up into the full stature of men and women in Christ, receiving forgiveness of sins and being sanctified through obedience unto eternal life. They become observers of the Word, perceive the power of the world to come, and are formed into Christlikeness with lives marked by love for God and others, by Christ's Spirit and holy aspirations, and by unselfishness, integrity, kindness and love. Their words and actions show Christ's attributes, Spirit and character with the fruit of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance, staying fresh with unwithering foliage.
Those who minister in word and doctrine need deep insight into the meaning of this lesson and a personal experience of it, first eating the bread themselves by communing with God, searching His Word, and becoming acquainted with His life, works and footprints before venturing before the people. Only what is received from Christ can be imparted, and as they impart they continue to receive, with the food given to their own souls shown in the atmosphere surrounding the soul, in the home life, and in the ministry of the Word. They are to give plain scriptural preaching that nourishes the heart and satisfies soul hunger instead of men's words, human sayings, or false teaching which cannot give life, for without spiritual food received from God they have nothing to impart to hungry people and to those united to them. Such receiving brings fresh perception of truth that kindles love, sustains piety and spiritual strength, prepares them to serve people of every class, and leads to the simplicity of true godliness learned at Jesus' feet.
The chapter holds the most precious and important lessons for an education that will endure through time and eternity, yet it is very instructive and only faintly understood. The most important education for children and youth is feeding upon Christ's words as His very flesh and blood, with the Bible to stand as the great educating Book above all other books in schools. That education includes the law of Jehovah and the penalty for breaking it, and that God accepts the ransom made by the Saviour in behalf of each one obedient to the law. The true bread is God's word spoken by Christ in Old and New Testaments, whose sufficiency guides to salvation so that belief in the Old leads to belief in the New, while human inventions presented as science are adulterated food and not true manna.
Feeding on heavenly manna as spiritual food brings spiritual strength and comfort, lasting vigor, a perfected experience and enduring joy, awakens hunger for God, and binds people to Christ in God. Each person must receive the Word personally, not merely through another person, and take it into daily actions and character. This sustains believers through loneliness and great tribulation, while a soul fed on worldly attractions loses relish for heaven's bread, so hunger for Christ as the soul's true food and for the spiritual food that gives life must be cultivated. The bread of life is plain, practical truth for which many are starving, and laden with that truth it gives rich food and a feast to very many souls, including many not of the faith, opening the way for truth to be more fully presented.
To be invited to receive Him is the greatest honor that can be conferred, furnished by inexpressible love as a costly banquet with unsearchable, inexhaustible resources prepared at infinite cost, and refusal brings amazement to heaven and grief to angels. As His sheep who hear His voice and follow Him they have eternal life now, shall never perish, and no one can pluck them out of His hand, and all who truly receive His Word never hunger and all who believe never thirst for higher food. This bread gives happiness and salvation as people advance in righteousness and restrain unrighteousness, with self hid with Christ in God so that when Christ who is our life appears His followers also appear with Him in glory.
The instruction is important to every soul and calls for earnest understanding with prayer, communion with God, proving the mind of God, and striving for knowledge of His will, reading and studying with dependence on God and not on human beings for strength, guidance and wisdom. Its wonderful truths are to be brought into practical life and its principles brought home to the soul without departing from its precepts, so that privileges in Christ may be understood and truth known only as it is known in Christ. So received it gives higher intelligence, clearer comprehension of heavenly things, deeper knowledge of God, deeper piety, and a purer and more vigorous Christian life, with Christ's work as substitute for sin as the hope of ancient Israel.
The fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and all died, for though it miraculously sustained their bodily life for forty years it could give only temporal life and not everlasting life or immortality. In contrast to that dead manna, Jesus himself is the true bread, the bread of life, the living bread come down from heaven, so that a man may eat and not die but live forever, be raised up at the last day and receive immortal life. The bread He gives for the life of the world is His flesh given in death as the propitiation for sin, provided at infinite cost by inexpressible love. To eat His flesh and drink His blood is not a literal act but to truly believe on Him and receive Him as personal Saviour, becoming one with Him and living by Him. That eating means receiving and assimilating His words into mind, heart and life, studying, obeying and practicing them through the Spirit, for His words are spirit and life while mere hearing without doing brings death.
Setting and Hearers Response
Jesus spoke these words in the synagogue at Capernaum where He presented Himself as the bread of life. The discourse followed the miracle in which by creative power He increased five barley loaves and two small fishes to feed five thousand men besides women and children and directed that the fragments be gathered that nothing be lost, and it followed His walking on the water. Its purpose was to lift minds from temporal food and from the miracle of the loaves to higher spiritual truth.
The crowd demanding a sign threw back at Him the manna eaten by their fathers, as it is written He gave them bread from heaven to eat. He Himself had conducted the Hebrews through the wilderness and had daily fed them that manna from heaven, yet they blindly referred Him to His own miracle. Their caviling showed blind unbelief, pride and self-righteousness that could not grasp its meaning.
The teaching challenged those who followed for hope of an earthly kingdom and for the temporal benefits of food, for His service offered no promise of worldly reward and understanding His message brought a closer test. It tested those who claimed to be His disciples, offended many, and their response showed that they rejected truth when it reproved them and exposed lives out of harmony with righteousness. Eternal life and entrance into God's kingdom require more than seeking the temporary benefits of food.
Many hearers and some who had professed to follow Him turned away from Him because of this discourse. The Twelve did not turn away then, and Peter speaking for them declared loyalty to Christ.
Manna's Temporary Gift
The manna sustained Israel's physical, temporal, bodily life in the wilderness, yet all the fathers who ate it still died, for it could not give everlasting life or immortality. It kept them only for a time and did not keep them from death, standing in contrast to Christ the bread from heaven whose words are spirit and life and who gives eternal life to those who receive Him by faith. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is spiritual experience and true earnest belief, receiving Christ and living by His word, which is not a substitute for Scripture whose truth must be brought into practical life. Whoever believes in Him has everlasting life and will live forever, for He gives His flesh for the life of the world and raises up at the last day those who eat the living bread come down from heaven so that a man may eat and not die.
Though only temporal food for bodily necessity, the manna was a standing miracle called angels' food, corn of heaven, food provided by the angels. Israel ate it forty years until they came to the borders of Canaan, daily reminded of God's unfailing care and tender love. They were daily taught that having God's promise they were as secure from want as if surrounded by fields of grain. Both that bread from heaven given by God and the showbread kept ever before the Lord pointed to Christ, the living bread ever in the presence of God for men, acknowledging man's dependence on God for temporal food and spiritual blessings received only through His mediation.
Moses did not give the true bread from heaven, and the bread from heaven can be obtained from no human agent. God the Father gives the true living bread through the gift of Christ, which endures unto everlasting life and gives life to the world. Christ does not overlook physical needs and will provide food to satisfy bodily necessities, as shown when by creative power He increased five barley loaves and two small fishes to feed five thousand men besides women and children and directed that fragments be gathered that nothing be lost.
Even food miraculously provided by God for the body is perishable and of far less consequence than spiritual food. Chief labor and anxiety must be given not to perishable bread for physical sustenance but to believing on Him whom God sent and securing the living bread. For he that comes to Christ shall never hunger and he that believes on Him shall never thirst, nor thirst for higher food when truly receiving His Word.
Christ the Living Bread
In contrast to the dead manna, Jesus Himself is the true bread, the bread of life, the living bread come down from heaven which gives life to the world, so that a man may eat and not die but live forever. Whoever believes in Him has everlasting life by believing, will be raised up at the last day, and will ultimately receive immortal life of the body in God's kingdom and eat of the hidden manna as overcomers. This life is received by coming to Him, believing in Him, and taking His words into mind and heart, because His words are spirit and life, and this shapes the receiver in His spirit and character. To eat this bread is to receive Christ, become one with Him, dwell in Him with Him in the eater, and live by Him as He lives by the Father.
The bread He gives for the life of the world is His flesh given in approaching death as the true propitiation for human sin represented by the Passover lamb. It is a provision furnished by inexpressible love as a costly banquet with unsearchable inexhaustible resources prepared at infinite cost through His death. He is the representation to the world and to the church of the tree of life, the bread which comes down from heaven ever in the presence of God for men. Both that wilderness manna and the showbread kept ever before the Lord pointed to Him, acknowledging man's dependence on God for temporal food and spiritual blessings received only through His mediation.
His words are spirit and they are life while the flesh profits nothing and the Spirit gives life. The saying is not about literal physical flesh, and the disciples at first did not comprehend this. Physical food, even food miraculously provided by God, cannot give eternal life; life comes through believing in Christ and receiving His words for spiritual food and drink. The chapter presents the conditions of eternal life, and fully understanding and living by it leads to a life that measures with the life of God. With John 13-17 it is part of the plainly expressed will of God for His people, containing the divine antidote for the sin of the whole world.
It gives the definition of the righteousness of Christ that must be accepted to have on the wedding garment and to reach the standard of character required to be counted a fit guest at the wedding, which is the marriage of humanity with divinity. One who eats this bread may still die as Christ died, but the life of the Saviour is in him and his life is hid with Christ in God. Christ came to give life more abundantly and makes believers one with Him in this present life to be one with Him throughout all eternity.
Eating by Believing Faith
Eating his flesh and drinking his blood is a parable and figure, not a literal physical act, for true earnest belief and true receiving of him by faith as personal Saviour and Redeemer. To eat is to become one with him, to dwell in him with him dwelling in the eater, and to live by him as he lives by the Father. This eating gives eternal life and resurrection at the last day, for his words are spirit and they are life while the flesh profits nothing and the Spirit gives life.
Eating means receiving and assimilating his words and teachings into mind, heart and life through the Spirit. It is keeping his Word and truth before the mind, studying it, masticating it, drinking it in, understanding it and practicing it. It brings its principles home to the soul, obeys its precepts, does the Word, and lives by everything God has revealed.
This receiving is personal and experiential, not merely intellectual agreement as theory, not merely through another person or outward connection with a church, and not by human suppositions. It reaches the heart and will and brings thoughts into obedience to Christ. It requires looking constantly to Jesus, daily hourly faith that works by love and purifies the soul, prayer and communion with God, dependence on God rather than on human beings, and cherishing the Spirit by which he spoke. Mere hearing or reading without practicing brings death rather than life, with misconception, misapplication and misinterpretation, because man is unwilling to receive God's teaching. Eating is not a substitute for Scripture, whose truth must be brought into practical life.
Eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God is a real experience of having tasted that the Lord is gracious, learned as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that they may grow thereby, requiring true conversion and being born again. The lesson must be appreciated, received and practiced with deep insight and experience, taking the principles of the Word into daily life in connection with Christ who knew no sin. So received it is the stronghold and defense against Satan's deceptions and spiritual darkness in the last days. All who minister in word and doctrine need this consecration and depth of experience so they live religion and do not play religion.
Living the Word Daily
Those who feed in this way receive nourishment sufficient for all the needs of the soul and grow up into the full stature of men and women in Christ, receiving forgiveness of sins and being sanctified through obedience unto eternal life. They become observers of the Word, perceive the power of the world to come, and are formed into Christlikeness with lives marked by love for God and others, by Christ's Spirit and holy aspirations, and by unselfishness, integrity, kindness and love. Their words and actions show Christ's attributes, Spirit and character with the fruit of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance, staying fresh with unwithering foliage.
Those who minister in word and doctrine need deep insight into the meaning of this lesson and a personal experience of it, first eating the bread themselves by communing with God, searching His Word, and becoming acquainted with His life, works and footprints before venturing before the people. Only what is received from Christ can be imparted, and as they impart they continue to receive, with the food given to their own souls shown in the atmosphere surrounding the soul, in the home life, and in the ministry of the Word. They are to give plain scriptural preaching that nourishes the heart and satisfies soul hunger instead of men's words, human sayings, or false teaching which cannot give life, for without spiritual food received from God they have nothing to impart to hungry people and to those united to them. Such receiving brings fresh perception of truth that kindles love, sustains piety and spiritual strength, prepares them to serve people of every class, and leads to the simplicity of true godliness learned at Jesus' feet.
The chapter holds the most precious and important lessons for an education that will endure through time and eternity, yet it is very instructive and only faintly understood. The most important education for children and youth is feeding upon Christ's words as His very flesh and blood, with the Bible to stand as the great educating Book above all other books in schools. That education includes the law of Jehovah and the penalty for breaking it, and that God accepts the ransom made by the Saviour in behalf of each one obedient to the law. The true bread is God's word spoken by Christ in Old and New Testaments, whose sufficiency guides to salvation so that belief in the Old leads to belief in the New, while human inventions presented as science are adulterated food and not true manna.
Feeding on heavenly manna as spiritual food brings spiritual strength and comfort, lasting vigor, a perfected experience and enduring joy, awakens hunger for God, and binds people to Christ in God. Each person must receive the Word personally, not merely through another person, and take it into daily actions and character. This sustains believers through loneliness and great tribulation, while a soul fed on worldly attractions loses relish for heaven's bread, so hunger for Christ as the soul's true food and for the spiritual food that gives life must be cultivated. The bread of life is plain, practical truth for which many are starving, and laden with that truth it gives rich food and a feast to very many souls, including many not of the faith, opening the way for truth to be more fully presented.
To be invited to receive Him is the greatest honor that can be conferred, furnished by inexpressible love as a costly banquet with unsearchable, inexhaustible resources prepared at infinite cost, and refusal brings amazement to heaven and grief to angels. As His sheep who hear His voice and follow Him they have eternal life now, shall never perish, and no one can pluck them out of His hand, and all who truly receive His Word never hunger and all who believe never thirst for higher food. This bread gives happiness and salvation as people advance in righteousness and restrain unrighteousness, with self hid with Christ in God so that when Christ who is our life appears His followers also appear with Him in glory.
The instruction is important to every soul and calls for earnest understanding with prayer, communion with God, proving the mind of God, and striving for knowledge of His will, reading and studying with dependence on God and not on human beings for strength, guidance and wisdom. Its wonderful truths are to be brought into practical life and its principles brought home to the soul without departing from its precepts, so that privileges in Christ may be understood and truth known only as it is known in Christ. So received it gives higher intelligence, clearer comprehension of heavenly things, deeper knowledge of God, deeper piety, and a purer and more vigorous Christian life, with Christ's work as substitute for sin as the hope of ancient Israel.