#DailyDevotion Jesus Is The Torah Incarnate That Gives Eternal Life

John 6:35, 41-51 ³⁵“I am the Bread of Life,” Jesus told them. “Come to Me, and you will never be hungry. Believe in Me, and you will never be thirsty…⁴¹Then the Jews grumbled because He said, “I am the Bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴²“Isn’t this Jesus, Joseph’s son,” they asked, “whose father and mother we know? Then how can He say, ‘I came down from heaven?’” ⁴³“Don’t grumble among yourselves,” Jesus answered them. ⁴⁴“A person can come to Me only if the Father Who sent Me draws him. Then I will raise him on the last day. ⁴⁵The prophets wrote: “God will teach everyone’. Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from Him comes to Me. ⁴⁶Not that anyone has seen the Father; only He Who comes from God has seen the Father. ⁴⁷I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has everlasting life.⁴⁸“I am the Bread of Life. ⁴⁹Your fathers ate the manna in the desert, and they died. ⁵⁰But this is the Bread coming down from heaven so that anyone may eat it and not die. ⁵¹I am the living Bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this Bread, he will live forever. The bread I’ll give to bring life to the world is My flesh.”

So it’s really a good thing the editors of the lectionary include verse 35 from last weeks lectionary in this weeks lectionary. This verse interprets the rest of the “Bread of Life” sermon Jesus is giving. For one, we have here “come to me” being the equivalent of eating because you don’t hunger then and “believe in Me” being the equivalent to drinking because you don’t thirst then.

Now first century Jews referred to the Torah, the Law of the LORD as the “Bread of Life.” When Jesus refers to himself as the “Bread of Life” he letting them know he is the Torah incarnate. But he is more than the Torah. The Torah is the Word of God. But the Word of God is more than the Torah. John opens his Gospel with Jesus is the Word of God made flesh. Just as the Word is more than the Torah, the Word is also more than the Bible because Jesus is the Word of God in the flesh. The Jews looked to the Scriptures for life but did not find it because they did not find Jesus there. If they believed the Torah, they would have come to and believed in Jesus.

Now the crowd being a bunch of belly fillers skip this revelation of Jesus as the Bread of Life and they just want to have their stomachs filled. They want the manna the Israelites ate in the desert as proof. Jesus tells them those who at the manna died. The Bread of Life he gives is his flesh and blood which gives eternal life. Jesus again points them to faith in him in verse 47, “anyone who believes has everlasting life.” Faith in Jesus is this eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood. It is believing Jesus is the Word of God, made flesh, to redeem us from our sins, make atonement by the shedding of his blood, overcoming death by his death on the cross and being justified by his flesh and bone rising to eternal life on the third day.

Jesus is the LORD God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who has become flesh to teach men. The Father sent him that we may know the Father through the Son. The Father draws people to Jesus as he opens their ears to listen to him. Through this listen the Spirit creates faith in Jesus so we may eat his flesh and drink his blood (faith in his incarnation and his work in the flesh) and have eternal life as a very present possession.

Heavenly Father, draw us to Christ so we may listen to him and receive eternal life. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.