Bread Out of Heaven (4)
Eating the Bread of Life, John 6
(Bible Study - April 2003)

Before we look at the witness of the gospels and the early preaching of the apostles in Acts, we can see a link with the difficult concept of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of man in a passage in Deuteronomy.  There the LORD God tells the Israelites they were subjected to hunger, deliberately, so that they learned “man doth not live by bread only, but by every thing that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live” (Deut. 8:3, all quotes RV).  Later, Ezekiel, before he witnessed to his contemporaries, was instructed to eat the roll containing God’s words, and it was in his mouth as sweet as honey (Ezk. 3:1-3).  Thus, man can live and be sustained by the words of the eternal God.

Christ sustained by the word
Driven by the spirit into the wilderness (a significant detail that recalls the experience of the Israelites), our Lord hungered.  When tempted to turn stones into bread, he responded by quoting Deuteronomy: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).  Later, he declared to his apostles whose immediate concern was to fill their stomachs: “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to accomplish his work” (John 4:34).  So completely was this true of the Lord that he was “the word made flesh.”  Hence to eat his flesh and drink his blood was, and is, effectively, to consume the Word of God and live by it.  Thus, when we review passages relevant to the Lord’s difficult and challenging teaching in John 6, we can see there is an underlying unity: scripture sheds light on scripture.

The birth of Jesus
Reference has also been made to the light the gospels can shed upon John 6 and the allusions to Jesus coming from heaven.  We have two records of the birth of Jesus Christ, in Matthew 1 and Luke 2.  When Joseph discovered the one to be his wife was already pregnant, he was understandably distressed.  He was, however, reassured when he learned, in what must have been a vivid dream, that Mary was with child because of the operation of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:20).  There is no suggestion, no hint this was a pre-existent divine being who had come from heaven.  Yet, if this were the case, it was a tremendous truth which would surely have been revealed.  Matthew (see 1:22-23) saw this momentous event as a fulfillment of the great prophecy in Isaiah 7:14: God Himself was to give a sign, a virgin was to give birth to a son, and he would have the name Emmanuel, “God with us.”

Luke’s record confirms the account of Matthew.  Mary herself was told she was to bear a son, because God’s power, the Holy Spirit, would overshadow her, and her child would be the Son of God (Luke 1:35).  Again, there is no hint the child was a divine being already in existence.

Credible witnesses
Luke is the writer who, in the book of Acts, tells us of the earliest days of the preaching of the gospel.  The leadership in this pioneer work was undertaken by Peter, supported by John.  They were very close to the Lord, especially John who reclined in the Lord’s bosom (John 13:25).  When the arrangements were made for those final hours in the upper room, the Lord commissioned Peter and John to be responsible (Luke 22:8).  They were also present when Jesus enunciated the great truths embodied in the discourse in John 6.  They were thus well placed to understand the Lord’s meaning when he insistently claimed to have come down from heaven.  Peter, as we have already noted, recognized that what he had heard from the Lord’s lips contained “the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).  This declaration on Peter’s part is followed by his acknowledging Jesus as “the holy one of God.”  This provides a link with Peter’s teaching in Acts 2.

After his resurrection, the Lord opened the mind of the apostles “that they might understand the scripture” (Luke 24:45).  Here surely was the occasion when the Lord could enlighten his apostles about his origins and explain to them, if this was the case, that he had literally come down from heaven.

Also we remember that the apostles received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  Taking all these factors together, we begin to appreciate how important was the presentation of the gospel in Acts 2 and 3.  It was on the very day the apostles received the spirit at Pentecost, so shortly after the Lord’s ascension to heaven, that Peter spoke to a large company in Jerusalem, to an audience gathered from all over the Roman empire, and beyond.  About three thousand were converted as the consequence of Peter’s testimony (Acts 2:41).  These formed the nucleus of the early church and they would take home the gospel as Peter had presented it.  Hence, as mentioned above, we must attach the greatest importance to what the apostle preached on this occasion.

The resurrection of Christ
Understandably, in view of its recent character, the apostle lays great emphasis upon the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.  In so doing, Peter incidentally reveals the subordination of the Son to his Father: Jesus of Nazareth was a “man approved of God…by mighty works and wonders and signs, which God did by him” (Acts 2:22).  This endorses the record in the gospels, that, on the occasion of his baptism, the Lord received the Holy Spirit which enabled him to perform the acts of healing, and to exercise the control of nature, which characterized his ministry.  (See Matt. 3:16; 4:23; 8:26 etc., and similar passages in the other Gospels.)

Doubtless we have in Acts 2 only a condensed account of Peter’s first message and we can safely conclude the details recorded in the Matthew references noted above might well have been spelled out by Peter at some length.  Then the apostle reminds his hearers of the Jewish responsibility in crucifying and slaying the Lord Jesus (Acts 2:23).  But this was not the end, for God raised him from the dead (v. 24).  It is an instructive exercise to note how, not only in Peter’s discourse, but elsewhere in the New Testament the emphasis is on the fact God raised His Son from the dead[1].  Then Peter proceeds to demonstrate how the Lord’s resurrection had been prophesied in Psalm 16 (Acts 2:25-28; Psa. 16:8-11).  It is in this psalm we encounter the expression “holy one” applied to Jesus.  Evidently it was one which impressed Peter as being especially appropriate to his Lord.

Having explained the psalm’s anticipation of Christ’s resurrection, Peter once more testifies it was God who raised Jesus, and of that all-important fact he and the other apostles were the witnesses (Acts 2:32).  But the Lord God did more than raise His Son from the dead: He exalted him to heaven, to sit at His right hand (v. 33), thus fulfilling the prophecy in Psa. 110:1-2.  There, in heaven, having received from his Father the promised Holy Spirit, the exalted Jesus had poured it out on his apostles.

The Father acts through His Son
In the consideration of all this, we must notice that the initiative is consistently the Father’s, who acts through His son.  Acts 2:36 endorses this conclusion, for, finally God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ.  The progression is apparent: first the Lord’s resurrection, then his exaltation to heaven, next, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  This established in a way that convinced thousands of Jews of the fundamental truths: Jesus of Nazareth, crucified by the house of Israel, had been established by their God as their Messiah and Lord, as he must surely be for every believer.

When we move on to Acts 3, we read of a truly remarkable miracle with great consequences.  In a very public place, Peter, accompanied by John, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, enabled a man lame from birth to walk, and even to leap (vv. 1-9).  Peter was at pains to decline any personal responsibility for the miracle.  In his explanation of what had occurred, the apostle recounted how God had glorified His Servant (margin: “child”) Jesus, and once more, Peter refers to himself and his fellow apostles as witnesses of God’s action in raising the crucified Jesus from the dead (v. 15).  We note, too, the apostle yet again speaks of Jesus as “the Holy…One” (v. 14).

In view of the Jewish responsibility for the judicial murder of Jesus, Peter calls on his hearers to repent and to receive the forgiveness of their sins (v. 19).  They can, too, embrace what is effectively the promise of the second coming, for the Lord God will send the Christ (v. 20).  Once more, we have to take note of the divine initiative.  As God sent His Son into the world, first by his birth of Mary, then by his anointing with the Holy Spirit at his baptism in preparation for his ministry, then by raising him from the dead and elevating him to His own right hand, so, at the time of His choosing, God will send His Son back to this world to establish the kingdom.  The Lord Jesus will then reign, bringing all things into subjection, until finally he himself will be manifestly subject to the Father (I Cor. 15:28).

There is in all this a sequence of divine acts, by no means difficult to understand, which enables us to interpret the sometimes “hard sayings” of John 6.  There, we remind ourselves, Jesus is the bread from heaven, which a man may eat and live forever.  He is, and should be, “our daily bread,” not merely in symbol on the first day of the week, but in reality each and every day.  We do well, therefore, to read some of his words each day, and to meditate upon his example, with its unique power of transformation (cf. Rom. 8:29).

Tom Barling, Teignmouth, England

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