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I Am The Bread of Life - John 6
I Am The Bread of Life - John 6
Throughout the book of John we see people misunderstanding Jesus, primarily because he at times uses words figuratively and people take it literally. He said "destroy this temple" (2:19), "you must be born again" (3:3,5), "he would have given you living water" (4:10), "I am the light of the world" (8:12, 9:5), "if you were blind you would have no guilt" (9:41), "Lazarus has fallen asleep" (11:11), etc.
As Jesus refers to himself as the good shepherd and his followers as sheep, John states: "This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them" (10:6). There are of course other statements of a similar nature which were not misunderstood that way: I am the good shepherd, I am the door, I am the vine and you are the branches, etc.
Here in chapter 6, John records yet another such misunderstanding: Jesus is the bread from heaven (32), bread of God (33), bread of life (35,48), the living bread (51). He states that we must "eat this bread" (51) and "feed on this bread" (58). He claims that "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you" (53).
The Catholic church apologists often use this chapter to argue for their teaching that the elements of the Lord's supper actually change and become His body and blood. Hence this is taken as a literal eating of His body and drinking of His blood. This gives rise to the idea of the Lord's supper being an actual sacrifice (repeated again and again) of the body of Jesus. Such sacrifice, it is argued, would require a priesthood to administer it, and hence this becomes the foundation of a special priesthood among them. The eating of the elements becomes 'a means of grace' and hence a sacrament.
The problem with all of this is that He is not speaking of literally eating His body. Such would be against the whole teaching of the Bible, in particular notice Lev. 17:12 and Acts 21:25.
Rather, this eating of Jesus is 'coming to Jesus'. Coming to Jesus is being TAUGHT (45), hearing His words and learning (45), believing in Him (35), His words (teaching) are spirit and life (63). Peter understood that there is no one else to go to for Jesus alone has the words of eternal life (6:67). Such coming to Jesus is living by His teaching. As He said later: "Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death" (8:51).
Are you feeding upon Jesus?
Hugh DeLong
For further consideration, I would suggest you read / study the article by Kyle Pope in Focus Magazine. A copy can be found online at http://focusmagazine.org/jesus-is-the-bread-of-life.php.
