#DailyDevotion Jesus Is The Lord Of The Torah Who Gives His Flesh To Eat

John 6:41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said,  “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say,  ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43Jesus answered them,  “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— 46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

When the Lord delivered the Israelites from the Egyptians they often grumbled against the Lord. Now in chapter sixth of John they are grumbling against the same Lord. They were grumbling against him because he said he was the bread that came down from heaven. They thought they knew Jesus, who he was and where he was from, but they did not. For while Jesus is certainly man, he is also the Lord, the living God of Israel.

He came down from heaven to teach his people. So that the word of the prophet would be fulfilled, “And they will be taught by God.” Even though he knew they would grumble against him and not believe him, he deigned to teach them anyway. Jesus admonishes them not to grumble. These ones, at least at this point, were not drawn by the Father to come to Jesus. There’s that come to phrase again. To the ‘come to’ we add the ‘drawn by’ phrase. Now Jesus ties himself to the Old Testament and to the Father for they are one. If you claim to believe in God the Father and you listen to the Father, then you must listen to Jesus. If you reject Jesus and his word then you never listened or believed what the Father revealed in the Old Testament.

Now Jesus adds one more phrase to the mix though it is just a word, eat. Jesus says whoever believes has eternal life in v. 47 and he then adds that as he is the bread of life whoever eats this bread may have eternal life. So now to eat Jesus is to believe Jesus. Jesus offers up his flesh for the world. His offering his flesh and his blood is his sacrifice upon the cross. His sacrifice is as John the Baptist proclaimed in the beginning of John he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Just as in the Torah, any sacrifice must be accompanied by faith in the promise the Lord attached to the sacrifice.

So now in John we have ‘labor for,’ ‘come to,’ ‘looks to,’ ‘drawn by,’ and ‘eats my’ being equated to believing in Jesus. To believe Jesus is to do all these things. If say you believe the Lord of the Torah, then you must also believe that Jesus is the Lord of the Torah in the flesh to offer himself up as a sacrifice for the sin of the world, for your sin. He calls you to trust in him and in his promise so that you may, when you are raised from the dead, have eternal life.

Heavenly Father, draw us to Jesus that we may believe in him, come to him, look to him, and eats his flesh that we may have eternal life and be raised on the Last Day. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.