Believing in the Bread of Life

“I assure you and most solemnly say to you, he who believes [in Me as Savior—whoever adheres to, trusts in, relies on, and has faith in Me—already] has eternal life [that is, now possesses it]. I am the Bread of Life [the Living Bread which gives and sustains life]. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the Bread that comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the Living Bread that came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this Bread [believes in Me, accepts Me as Savior], he will live forever. And the Bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh (body).”’ (John 6:47-51, AMP)

How many things did you try to build your life on before Jesus? How many things did you try to nourish your soul with before His grace? What did you try to satisfy your heart with before you believed?

Before Christ, you can build your life on a number of things: a career, a family, an academic resumè, entertainment, the news– you name it, someone has probably tried it. But whatever that thing might be is like a sandcastle… it crumbles and amounts to nothing. 

Those things are like the manna God fed Israel with in the wilderness. It’s something that might have an immediate and temporal satisfaction, but it’s not something that sustains. It doesn’t fulfill or stand for all time. Manna was a blessing for sure, but Israel was hungry again the next day and had to keep gathering it, sifting it, cooking it and, before it met that hunger again.

These things that we can build our lives in apart from Christ are the same. None of them are bad things, but they all need to be constantly striven for to keep meeting our need for fulfillment. 

When Jesus tells this crowd of people that He is the Bread of Life and that he who believes has eternal life, He is giving us such a wonderful assurance and an easy understanding of His Gospel. 

This idea of “eating” or “drinking” was a common turn of phrase for Jews at the time. It was a metaphor that was used to communicate taking something into one’s innermost being. This consuming of Bread (or water from a couple chapters back) would have been understood that Jesus was challenging the people to take God’s Truth– the reality of who Jesus is and what He was born to do– and consuming it; taking it in to their very souls. 

Jesus wasn’t asking these people to validate Him as a teacher, prophet, martyr, or spiritual man. Jesus was alluding to the sacrifice that was coming on the cross– that He was the Bread of Life and that the bread they would eat would be comprised of His very flesh. In order for anyone to eat of it or enjoy the eternal life it brings would require a sacrifice. 

Not of money, or time, or ministry. A sacrifice of Jesus’ very body. He would have to give His very life for them to partake in this promise of eternal life.

He was asking these people to believe He was the Savior and the Son of God. Many will take this passage and interpret it as Jesus alluding to the Lord’s Supper, and the parallel to draw that conclusion from is there. Jesus is the Bread of Life, and Jesus broke actual bread at the Last Supper saying, “Take and eat, this is my body.” 

Some denominations will take this as an excuse to place importance on communion that isn’t meant to be there: saying that the actual taking of communion is what saves, that consuming His body and blood is what sanctifies and makes us righteous. 

That misses the whole point. The Bread of Life and communion itself all points to what Christ was about to do on the cross: pour out His blood to cover our sins and serve as the final sacrifice to atone for us before God.

Yes, communion is a beautiful celebration of that great act of love and a remembrance that Christ chose to save us and offer us that eternal life. But the spiritual meal we share at the Lord’s supper doesn’t replace the cross, the empty tomb, and the torn veil that Jesus accomplished. We don’t have to take a physical meal to feed that innermost part of us. 

We just need to believe that Christ is that One who came to save. That He accomplished it and there is nothing left to do. There is nothing you or I could ever do that would make that sacrifice more perfect. There is nothing that you or I could ever build our lives upon that would satisfy, quench, or fulfill us more than Jesus’ Gospel and that act of “eating” or taking Jesus in– consuming Him to be in our very soul. 

That’s a beautiful intimacy with God that nothing else can even come close to. That’s a nearness and a wonder that can never be fully understood but is an awesome reality to every follower of Christ. It’s something we don’t have to work toward or strive for. It’s something that’s easy as eating a piece of bread– to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He came to give us life through an act of love beyond our understanding.

That’s a faith that trusts in, leans on, and binds itself to the Savior of the world, the King of kings, and the Bread of Life.