Deut 8:2-3 "God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3“He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.
The symbolic lesson that manna was to teach is the lesson that mankind is not dependent on LITERAL bread for eternal life but on the WORD of God because THAT was true LIFE. Interesting that CHRIST chooses to Draw this into His dialogue in John 6 - let's see how He uses it.
Notice that the reference to the Future communion table is brought in by the commentary - but IN the John 6 text - Christ Himself makes NO reference to COMMUNION and Christ does NOT insist that SOMEDAY FUTURE Christ WOULD be turned into bread or Christ's flesh WOULD be food - rather Christ ASSERTS that HE IS THEN - PRE-CROSS and PRE-communion - HE already IS FOOD, BREAD and DRINK for He does not say “some day my flesh Will become food”. These ARE the words of Christ and they are PRE- COMMUNION. Christ makes no mention at all to the disciples about the communion service on this day when the faithLESS came to Him seeking more literal bread and literal flesh to eat.
Read the infallible words of Christ and learn from HIM.
John 6:33Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.
Here Christ is telling us that the ACT that results in eternal life is Literally believing.
48“I am the bread of life.
This is not a - "I WILL BE THE BREAD OF LIFE in a few days at the communion table".
49“Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50“This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51“I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”
Christ says he WILL give his flesh - but he already IS THE LIVING BREAD and He ALREADY CAME down from heaven as MANNA. Cleraly they were not seeing literal manna fall and speak to them in John 6.
52Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”
The listeners at least understood the tense - that Christ was CURRENTLY that bread of life.
53So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54“He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55“For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 56“He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.
All this is present or past tense indicating that the ACTION is true now and that some ALREADY HAVE eternal life BECAUSE they ARE eating and drinking. This is without reference to FUTURE communion.
58“This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.”
Now Christ moves clearly to PAST tense again in terms of WHEN the BREAD of heaven - MANNA CAME down. The MANNA illustration - EXPLICITLY brought into the John 6 text by Christ - teaches the following lesson - by the EXPLICIT statement of the infallible Word "Man does NOT live by bread alone - but BY EVERY WORD that comes from the MOUTH of GOD". Deut 8:2-4
Notice that God has used this SAME illustration of EATING the WORD - as RECEIVING and BELIEVING in Ezek 2:
8“Now you, son of man, listen to what I am speaking to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you.” 9Then I looked, and behold, a hand was extended to me; and lo, a scroll was in it. 10When He spread it out before me, it was written on the front and back, and written on it were lamentations, mourning and woe.
Again in Ezekiel
3:1Then He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.”
2So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll.
3He said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving you.” Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth.
4Then He said to me, “Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with My words to them.
5“For you are not being sent to a people of unintelligible speech or difficult language, but to the house of Israel, 6nor to many peoples of unintelligible speech or difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. But I have sent you to them who should listen to you;
7yet the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, since they are not willing to listen to Me. Surely the whole house of Israel is stubborn and obstinate. 8“Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. 9“Like emery harder than flint I have made your forehead. Do not be afraid of them or be dismayed before them, though they are a rebellious house.” 10Moreover, He said to me, “Son of man, take into your heart all My words which I will speak to you and listen closely.
Ok so Christ uses the symbol of Manna (Which God's word SAYS - teaches the lesson of LIVING by the WORD of God) AND that same illustration of God's WORD as FOOD is used again in Ezekiel. But is it REALLY REALLY the right interpretation for John 6 - Christ HIMSELF tells us.
John 6:
61“Does this cause you to stumble?
62“What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?
John 6
63“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
This Christ said of His flesh – His literal flesh-- IN the context of the literal meaning taken by the faithLESS disciples that left him.
In John 6 it is ONLY the faithLESS disciples that are stuck in "literal flesh eating mode". It is “they” that stumble by taking a false literal interpretation to the Bread that came down out of heaven – just as in Matt 16 the disciples are chastised for not seeing bread as a symbol for “teaching”.
In Matt 16 Christ condemns the disciples for being "too literal" for thinking that BREAD is in fact "literal bread" when in fact the bread that came down from heaven "is the WORD" John 1 and Deut 8 make that point loud and clear.
Christ emphasizes that same point in John 6 - after talking about the Flesh giving eternal life in John 6 speaking in symbols - at the end He speaks plainly saying -- it is the WORD that gives life and that in fact "the Flesh is Worthless". It could not be any easier - He spelled it all out for us - and only the faithLESS disciples of John 6 failed to "get the message".
The FaithFUL disciples of John 6 "took no bite out of Christ".
Notice Christ did not say "SOME day in the FUTURE my flesh WILL BECOME FOOD" because in fact the BREAD of heaven had ALREADY come down and the Word of Christ was ALREADY life and it ALREADY had to be spiritually eaten. Christ argues that it is PRESENT fact - and not a soul among the faithFULL bit Him.
How obvious - and devastating - for the RC spin on this.
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