The bread of life continued.
“I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” John 6:35.
The people did not follow Jesus to be with Him. They followed Him because they wanted Him to satisfy their physical needs. Jesus fed them and healed their diseases, giving them an opportunity to understand that they needed to seek spiritual food. Food that meets bodily needs is temporary, but spiritual food lasts forever. Jesus does not call us to follow Him to receive the food and healing He offers, but to have Him. He is our life and our path to the Father for eternity. “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6). “I am the living bread,” proclaimed Jesus. In what way is He our “living bread”?
“This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (John 6:51). Humankind was dead in sin; therefore, it needed new life. (Ephesians 2:1). We received new human life in Jesus Christ through the wonderful exchange of the human spirit in the body of Jesus on the cross at Golgotha. “But because of his great love for us, God, who abounds in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in heavenly realms in Christ Jesus in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4–7).
God, in Jesus Christ, gave us more than we can now understand. However, to receive eternal human life and all that God offers, we must, here and now, trust and believe that Jesus has accomplished what He came to do (John 6:47). We must come to Jesus because we want to know Him and be with Him, because of who and what He is, not because of what He has to offer. God, on the cross at Golgotha, put our sin on Jesus Christ so that we can receive His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). God also placed our natural tendency to sin on Jesus (Isaiah 53:6). Therefore, our sinful human life died forever in the body of Jesus Christ on the cross. “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.” (2 Corinthians 5:14). God replaced our sinful human life with the perfect and eternal human life of Jesus Christ. On the cross at Golgotha, this great exchange was for all humankind (John 12:32). Those who believe that God has accomplished the salvation of the world in Jesus Christ on the cross at Golgotha have eternal life, here and now. Those who do not believe remain condemned (John 3:14, 15, 18).
Who can hear God? Read the next Blog.