Jesus Is the Bread of Life Part 2

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. (John 6:47–51, NKJV)

When Jesus said He was “the Bread of life,” He was building upon His actions of the day before. On the previous day, Jesus had miraculously fed five thousand men (this number didn’t include women and children). The multitude, still remembering the loaves and fishes from the day before, were clamoring for more when they found Jesus on the opposite shore of Galilee. This notable miracle had satisfied their hunger—but only for a day.

The fish and the bread must have tasted good too, because the people came back for more. This is not bad in and of itself. Anytime Jesus performs a miracle, it creates a hunger for more—a spiritual hunger. It was this spiritual hunger that Jesus was speaking to, now that the crowd had eaten of the miracle loaves and fish. The multitude could still taste the miracle meal; the wonder of it was still in their minds. Jesus had to redirect them to the purpose of the miracle.

Jesus used this miracle to reveal Himself to them. He explained that natural bread doesn’t satisfy you even when God miraculously provides it. God fed the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years with manna from Heaven, but they still died. The real purpose of this miracle was to point us directly to Jesus as the Bread—not just someone who provides bread. Feeding on Christ satisfies the soul with eternal life.

Jesus is better than the best bread a man or woman can obtain. He is better than manna! Manna was a symbol and a prophetic pattern; Jesus is the fulfillment. This simple illustration used by Jesus was designed to turn our attention away from natural things to spiritual things, and from the awareness of physical hunger to the awareness of spiritual hunger.

In essence, Jesus was saying to the multitude, “I am the Bread you are looking for. I am the real reason you traveled across a lake to be here.”

Today, we are reminded that there is more than one kind of hunger. It is easy to be driven by the hunger of our flesh, but the reality is our flesh will never be satisfied. Flesh is temporary so it only seeks the temporary. Your spiritual man is hungry too. Your spirit is eternal, so it seeks for the eternal. The next time you take a bite of that perfect piece of bread at the dinner table to feed your body, don’t forget to feed your soul.

Consider how Moses explained the manna: “So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 8:3, NKJV).

When Jesus hungered after forty days of fasting, Satan tempted Him. Jesus quoted these same words: “But He answered and said, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”’” (Matthew 4:4, NKJV).

Because life is more than physical, humans need more than bread to live. Real life—abundant and vibrant as God intended—comes from the rhema word (or proceeding word) of God. That is what Jesus meant by “the Bread of life.” Let your soul feed on His words.