No less than seven times in John’s gospel did Jesus identify Himself as “I am”, I see these powerful statements linking Him with God the Father who in Exodus 3:14 indentified Himself to Moses as “I AM WHO I AM”. As “God manifest in the flesh” 1 Timothy 3:16, Jesus is everything God the Father is, and everything He ever promised or portrayed Himself to be. The term “I Am” puts Him in all time and eternity being present tense – right now, forever, and always! Just as God the Father proclaimed in Malachi 3:6 “For I am the Lord, I do not change” so it is declared of Jesus in Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” In John 6:35 He said “I am the bread of life” Bread speaks to us of sustenance, strength, nourishment, and satisfaction; as bread supplies these to our physical body so He provides them to our inner man, our spirit. Our inner spirit, even though we were born “dead in trespasses and sins”, Ephesians 2:1, craves satisfaction but all we have been feeding it with is carnal gratification which tends to death. However, Jesus is “the bread of life”, both giving and sustaining life and satisfaction; He is the “living bread” John 6:51, represented by His flesh which He gave for us when He “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” 2 Timothy 1:10. In John 6:54 He tells us “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life…” that is whoever receives My sacrifice by faith receives My life, and then in verse 57 He says, “he who feeds on Me will live because of Me”, continual sustenance! This is vividly pictured in Exodus 16 where God provided bread, however the people had to go out and gather their daily portion, cf. 1 Corinthians 10:3. Likewise Jesus has provided our spiritual bread, John 6:33, but to benefit from it we must actively partake of it, and continue to do so.
Living bread
By Rose Hill
Jesus is the living bread,
And by Him we can be fed.
We must partake of this bread that’s living,
Then we will receive the blessings He’s giving.
Strength for the day is multiplied,
Made possible because for us He died.
Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version copyright …1982 by Thomas Nelson Co. used by permission.