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Yeshua -> "I Am the Bread of Life”: The Fulfillment of Old Testament Prophesy

THIS ‘I AM’ STATEMENT is the first of seven used by Yeshua in the fourth Gospel, and rightfully so. All the other statements fall up under this umbrella statement. The focus of this statement proclaimed by Jesus Christ is to show His nature, that He is the sustainer of life, the very sustenance needed for survival—for He is “the Bread of Life” in which all things find their provision.

Yeshua's words direct us back to the Old Testament when God said to Moses, “I have heard the grumblings of the sons of Israel; speak to them, saying, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God’” (Ex 16:12 NASB). This is the context in which we find the crowds’ expectation or challenge to Yeshua in regards to His claims. The crowd wanted Yeshua to outperform Moses. Consider what John MacArthur says in regards to John 6:31:


"The crowds’ logic appeared to be that Jesus’ miraculous feeding was a small miracle compared to what Moses did. In order for them to believe in Him, they would need to see Him feed the nation of Israel on the same scale that God did when He sent manna and fed the entire nation of Israel during their wilderness wanderings for 40 years (Ex 16:11-36). They were demanding that Jesus outdo Moses if they were to believe in Him."


Now let’s not forget, up until this point, Yeshua had already performed, five of eight, of the “signs” that demonstrated His divine attributes and yet, the crowd was still wanting more evidence. The crowd wasn’t just requesting additional support they were antagonistic in their approach and in responding they even quoted scripture back to Him, “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘HE GAVE THEM BREAD OUT OF HEAVEN TO EAT’” (Ps. 78:24 NASB). Yeshua then gives a retort on His nature and mission:


"I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent Me."


Yeshua has emphatically laid down the gavel in responding to the people. According to Leon Morris, Yeshua makes two corrections to their statement, he states, “Jesus pointed out two errors: it was not Moses that gave the bread from heaven, but God, and further God not only gave but ‘gives’ the true bread from heaven.” Morris then goes on to say:


"In the miracle of the feeding John has made it clear that Jesus is able to supply people’s needs in miraculous fashion, and in the discourse that follows he shows that Jesus does more than that. Deep down, people have an intense spiritual hunger. John is making clear that Jesus satisfies that hunger, and further that that hunger can be satisfied in Him alone. So he turn’s people’s attention away from their concentration on the manna that was of old, and points out that the God who keeps on supplying the needs of his people is still at work. In that Jesus Himself is the bread of life, He is the bringer of life to the spiritually dead."


The importance of this “bread” reference is that during biblical times, bread was pretty much all they had to eat. Bread was the only sustainer of life for the masses. If you don’t have Christ, then you have nothing! It alludes to the greatest truth of all—Yeshua states, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (Jn 14:6 NASB).

According to Dr. Elmer Towns:


"Manna was one of several types of Christ in the Old Testament. Given to Israel originally as their bread in the wilderness, God stopped providing it only after the nation crossed the Jordan River and began eating the grain of the land. It was widely known as ‘The bread from heaven.’"


Dr. Towns points out four similarities between the “manna” of the Old Testament and the “bread” reference of Yeshua. He delineates these as “the bread of everlasting life,” “the bread of satisfying life,” “the bread of resurrection life,” and “the bread of indwelling life.”

In the end, the Christian faith only matters if you have the proper perspective of Jesus Christ. He was not just a good man, or prophet—He was the all-knowing, all-powerful, everywhere present Creator of all things. The fulfillment of Old Testament prophesy.


- Prepare Today | Prepare Tomorrow -


Lee


Psalm 91


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Sources:

Link, H. The Bread of Life: Comments on a Fundamental Biblical Experience. Ecumenical Review, 1982.

MacArthur, John. The MacArthur Study Bible. Thomas Nelson, Inc, 2006.

Morris, Leon. Jesus Is The Christ. Grand Rapids: Erdman’s Publishing Company, 1989.

Towns, Elmer. The Gospel of John: Believe and Live. Tennessee: AMG Publishers, 2002.




NOTE: Photo credits go to Breakingbreadtheology.com.
NOTE: Photo credits go to Breakingbreadtheology.com.

 
 
 

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In Congress, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of

Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

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       He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

       He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

       He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

       He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

       He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

       He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

       He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

       He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

       He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

       He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

       He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

       He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

       He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

       For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

       For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

       For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

       For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

       For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

       For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

       For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

       For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

       For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

       He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

       He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

       He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

       He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

       He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

 

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

 

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

 

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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