What did HE say? (continued)
Bread of Life (Part 3)
“They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, ever more give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” (John 6:30-38)
The first verse above is of the people giving an answer to Jesus regarding His remark that to believe on Him is the work of God. They did not understand this reply and, as we have covered for the last two posts, neither do many in our day. Our discussion does not dispute that believing is the work of God; it expands upon it to identify the real meaning of the word translated as believe and to put it into the context that Jesus taught. Work is an act and if believing is the work then the believing is and act as well; it is active. Thus we have the active act of believing and this is the work of God; we are following the One whom we believe and trust we do as He says to do as we are impelled to do by our own Christ Within and our own Spirit which is at one with the Spirit of the Father.
The people now question the Master for a sign; a sign that He was sent from the Father and a sign that He is sealed by the Father can be the only logical ideas as to the nature of the question. They know of His power; at the beginning of this chapter we read that they saw the healing that He did, they partook in the bread that Jesus ‘created’ for them in the wilderness and they knew that He had mysteriously departed from them and appeared at the other shore without the use of a boat. What other sign could they be seeking but to show Himself as from the Father? Now the dialogue to this point begins with bread; with Jesus telling them that they sought Him because they ate of the bread and the discussion continues with the people telling the Master about Moses and the manna from heaven. This manna is something of which they have no real knowledge and so they say that it is written. Jesus, as usual, does not answer their asking for a sign but seizes the opportunity to discuss the bread and the manna saying: “Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world“. Jesus here is telling them that Moses did not give them the manna, God did and that the manna was just to fill their bellies; the true bread is from the father and it is not to fill the belly but to fill the heart; It is the bread of life which comes from heaven. The context of this is that He is telling them again that He has the bread of God and then that He is the bread of God.
Now we all understand today that Jesus is not speaking of bread in the sense of food for the body but as food for the spiritual life. For our purpose we should see this as Jesus proclaiming another one of His unique properties or qualities. If we look upon His saying this as He is continuing His dialogue on believing (and He gets back to that in the next verse), we can see it a bit more clearly. To believe on Him is the work of God and is to trust Him and to do what He says to do. In doing so, we are focused on Him and attending to our spiritual lives and He, His words, become for us our spiritual bread. This spiritual bread then comes from our Spirit and into our conscious personality pushing out the worldly consciousness and putting us in His Presence. Another way is saying that to believe, in our defined context, causes us to do what He tells us to do and puts us in a place where we are attending to Him and His word thereby putting our conscious selves into the Kingdom.
The peoples reply can be seen here as belief in what He is saying to them. They say ” Lord, ever more give us this bread” but as we go on into this dialogue we can see that the Master does not think that they believe. Assuming that they do not understand the depth of the words that the Master is saying to them they may have been looking for more of the type of bread that He had ‘created’ for them previously. Or, they may have be speaking facetiously as one would do in today’s language when faced with some thing said that is not believable. It matters not as the Master sees through whatever their intent and continues saying: “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst“.
Here Jesus is multiplying His criteria to them to include he that cometh and introduces also the concept that He is the bread of life. Here, in the word translated as cometh which is the Greek word erchomai we have another indication of the real depth of the word believe. They are used together in this verse and are used to mean the same thing. The lexicon tells us that erchomai is defined in English as to come; of persons, to come from one place to another, and used both of persons arriving; to appear, make one’s appearance, come before the public; metaph., to come into being, arise, come forth, show itself, find place or influence, be established, become known, to come (fall) into or unto; to go, to follow one. We should see that there is meaning in this word other than to physically come to the Master; we will focus in on to follow one at the end of the listing for our meaning as this is the only one that, other than to physically come, fits into the context of the sentence. We must look here at cometh as we would look at come in His sayings: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself” (Luke 9:23) and “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest“; we know that these do not refer to any other thing than to follow the Master.
The strength of His statements that He is the bread of life and that all that follow Him will never hunger and will never thirst is now overwhelming to the crowd and Jesus senses this as we see in the next verse where the Master says: “that ye also have seen me, and believe not“. These are people who we can guess are good Jews, religious people in their day and that they are thinking that Jesus means that they will never thirst or hunger in a physical way. They neither comprehend nor understand what the Master is saying to them and He goes on to confound them even more; it may even appear that He does this purposefully. He does tell them, a little further on, as He tells us continually, that “the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63) so we know the nature of His words. He also tells them and us that “…this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Matthew 13:15). How many of us read His words and take from them only the surface meanings not seeing that they are Spirit and we need to understand them with our hearts and be converted or turned to God.
The subject now changes as Jesus begins to tell them more about the nature of Christ. “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me” Here the word giveth is similar in nature to the word cometh and, again, we should remember that we are looking at spiritual matters and not physical. There is no actual giving from the Father to the Son as they are ONE AND THE SAME as we know from His saying: “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) and, when He, speaking to the Father, says: “that they may be one, as we are” (John 17:11). So what is the giveth? God is Spirit and we are Spirit, this is our true self. When we are focused on the Kingdom of God and allowing our Spirit nature to influence our personality consciousness we are giving ourselves, our conscious selves, to the Lord. Giving in this context and coming to the Christ are here a single act for one includes the other. Living in His Presence is giving our personalities to the Lord and turning away from the world of men. We are Christ’s, we do His work and His word and in this we have our security and are accepted in the spiritual world as long as we choose to stay. We can then say, like the Master says, “I came down from heaven“, into this physical world and this personality, “not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me” which is the real self, the Spirit and that which gives to its personality its life.
Note on the Quote of the Day
This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.
Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corithians 10:31)
And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. (Colossians 3:17, 23)
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might… (Ecclesiastes 9:10)
Today’s Quote of the Day is a combination of four like sayings; three from the Apostle Paul and one from Ecclesiastes which is presumed to be by the pen of Solomon. The message from all is that in everything that we do we should approach it spiritually and do it in a manner that could be seen as such; that is not to do things for the sake of the flesh. Whether eating and drinking or in word or deed we should do them heartily, from the heart, and as to the Lord and our own spiritual selves and in this spiritual consciousness, mightily.
** from New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
