Jesus as the Manna and the Rock

Introduction

I can remember a time when I was a teenager and frustrated with English class. You see my frustration came when we would start talking about symbolism. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate some good symbolism and when I saw it in what I was reading I was often impressed by the abilities of some others to give significance to what could have been otherwise meaningless details. What got me is when it started to seem like the teacher was reaching for symbolic significance in every detail the writer shared. For example saying that when the author describes the dark blue curtains in the room it symbolizes the main character’s internal struggle with depression or some such thing like that. I figured, having written some prose myself, that it was entirely plausible that the author was trying to put a picture in your mind of the setting and just looked around himself and seeing something blue made the curtains blue. Not everything had this deep symbolic meaning.

This is the point if we haven’t reached it already where some of you are going to think I’m being like my homeroom teacher and reaching for types of Christ in the Old Testament where there aren’t any. Bear with me. See the thing I came to learn is that sometimes the blue curtain does have significance, sometimes it doesn’t. In the case of the Scriptures the same thing is true. Some things are a reach to say they represent Christ and I wouldn’t preach a whole sermon based on those. Some are mentioned by the author of Scripture Himself as types of Christ though at first glance they may seem strange.

Today we’re actually going to talk about two types of Christ: The manna from heaven and the rock in the desert. Both although at first seeming to be hardly related to Christ are two of the types that are actually referenced in Scripture itself as foreshadowing Jesus.

As a reminder, in this series on Finding Jesus in the Old Testament we’ve been looking through the Hebrew Scriptures to find Jesus there in three different ways, Prophecies that foretell the coming of Jesus, Christophanies where Jesus appears in preincarnate form in the Old Testament and Types of Christ, which are people and things which in some way foreshadow and point us towards Jesus.

The two types of Christ that we’re talking about today both come from the time that the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness. The first, manna, is the bread that God provided for the Israelites to eat. We read about it in Exodus 16. It’s a lengthy passage of scripture, so I hope you trust me to summarize it for you.

The Israelites for context had just been rescued from slavery in Egypt. Literally they just finished singing a song of praise to celebrate God parting the red sea and then closing it in on the Egyptians again. Then they find themselves in the wilderness. The problem with the wilderness? There’s no food. So what do the people of God who have just been miraculously rescued by God and given freedom for the first time in their lives do?

Complain.

We read in Exodus 16:3

Exodus 16:3 ESV

and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

Not an encouraging start.

Yet God has mercy on the people and tells them that He will rain down bread from heaven to feed them. He will provide enough for every individual day and forbids them from collecting more than they needed to eat each day. Except of course on Fridays, where they would gather enough for two days so that they could rest on the Sabbath. This bread is described as a fine flake-like thing that tasted like wafers made with honey.

So the Israelites do exactly what God told them to and never complain again, right? Wrong. They instead try to hoard the manna when they aren’t supposed to, and they try to gather manna on the sabbath. And they name the bread Manna, which means “what is it?” because it was strange and they didn’t know what it was. After this they take a jar of the manna and eventually put it inside the Ark of the Covenant.

After this the people continue on and they become thirsty and have no good source of water. Now surely having just been given miraculous bread from heaven they wouldn’t complain again would they? We read in Exodus 17:3

Exodus 17:3 ESV

But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”

So the Lord tells Moses that the Lord will stand before Him on a rock in Horeb, and Moses is to strike the rock with his staff and the Lord will provide water from the rock. So Moses did as he was told, and the Lord miraculously provided water for the congregation of Israel. To remember this sour moment Moses then names the place Massah and Meribah because Massah means testing and Meribah means quarreling. Later near the end of their time in the wilderness we have a similar moment, when the people again quarrel with Moses and Aaron because they don’t have water. This time the Lord tells Moses to speak to the rock and it will provide water for the people. Instead Moses strikes the rock twice and the water is again provided, but we read in Numbers 20:12

Numbers 20:12 ESV

And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”

Now at first blush it’s difficult to see how either of these things picture Jesus, but I think if we take a look together at these two moments in the light of New Testament revelation we can learn some deep insights into the character of Jesus from them.

The Manna

So first let’s talk about what Manna teaches us about Christ. First we need to ask the question: where do we get the idea that Jesus is pictured in the Mana from heaven in Exodus? Well we get that idea from the words of Jesus Himself. This statement comes just after Jesus feeds the five thousand miraculously with bread and fish. The crowd catches up with Him the next day and we read in

John 6:25–35 ESV

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

So there you have it from Jesus Himself, comparing Himself with the Manna from heaven. So let’s ask the question, how is Jesus like the Manna from heaven?

First of all, both are given as free gifts from a loving God to sinful people. The Manna from heaven was in response to grumbling ungrateful people, but God still provided for them despite their poor attitude. Christ was given to people who were lost and sinful. He came for us while we were yet sinners as a free gift from God also. Both show the loving grace of God.

Second, both Manna and Jesus encourage us to be concerned with the present and trust God with the future. In a way the Manna in the wilderness was a test for Israel. They were to gather only enough for each day’s food. This meant that you had to trust that the God who provided for you today would provide for you again tomorrow, instead of hoarding the manna to take control over your own provision. In the same way Jesus tells us to trust God to take care of us in Matthew Chapter 6. He reminds us that birds of the air and grass of the field don’t toil and worry and God looks after them. Then He says in Matthew 6:34

Matthew 6:34 ESV

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Similarly earlier in Matthew 6 when Jesus teaches us how to pray He tells us to ask God for “our daily bread,” which is very reminiscent of the daily Manna provided to the Israelites. We are to trust God each and every day to provide for us while all we worry about is obeying Him.

That being said, just as with Adam and some other types, what’s more important about the Manna is how it’s not like Christ. In fact this is the point Jesus Himself is making in the John passage we were looking at. John 6:35

John 6:35 ESV

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

The Israelites ate the Manna in the wilderness and it sustained them for forty years, but they ultimately died outside the promised land. Jesus however is the bread of life, and only through Him can we inherit eternal life in the forever promised land.

The Rock

We looked at the manna first which provided food for the Israelites, but let’s pause to take a look at the rock that provided them with water. Like with the Manna, God graciously provided the Israelites with water despite their complaints and lack of trust in Him. We see that this rock is a type of Christ this time not from Jesus, but from Paul in

1 Corinthians 10:1–5 ESV

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

So Paul gives us our justification for viewing the rock as a type of Christ. He does this in the context of saying that the things which happened to the Israelites in the wilderness happened in order that we might learn from the bad example of the Israelites and not do the same things that they did. So take that as a note to trust in God more than they did and not grumble and complain. What can we learn by looking at the rock from the perspective of it being a type of Christ? First I should say that Paul doesn’t literally mean that the rock followed them around in the desert. Rather He means that Jesus was with them as they went and the rock is an image of Him. We can see this very clearly in the Exodus 17 passage, in verse Exodus 17:6 where God says to Moses:

Exodus 17:6 ESV

Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.

Interesting that God says He will stand on the rock and then asks Moses to strike it in order to provide the Israelites with water. So in a sense Moses is striking God to give flowing or living water to the Israelites. What does that sound like? Well it sort of sounds like when Jesus was stricken for our transgressions doesn’t it? It’s also interesting that the second time they grumble for water Yahweh instructs Moses not to strike the rock, but simply to speak to it. Let’s read more of that passage together. Numbers 20:7-12

Numbers 20:7–12 ESV

and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.” And Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he commanded him. Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”

So why the second time does Moses simply need to speak to the rock rather than striking it? And why does God make such a big deal about the fact that Moses strikes it instead of speaking to it? Well there’s more than meets the eye going on here. Mike Winger suggests in his study on types of Christ that the reason Moses is supposed to speak to the rock instead of striking it is because of the rock’s symbolic significance as representing Jesus. Jesus only needed to be struck down once, and now that He has died for our sins we only need to come to Him in prayer to receive the water He gives and no further sacrifice need be made.

I’ve heard other preachers make a different observation however. It’s possible that the sin of Moses was not trusting God at His word and relying on his own experience instead. In fact when God condemns Moses after this He accuses Him of not believing Him. Maybe because striking the rock worked last time Moses struck it instead of listening to the different instructions that God gave to Him. In which case we should take Paul’s advice and learn from Moses’ poor example to trust God at His word and do what He tells us to even if it seems strange.

Once again however the key fact about this type is not how Jesus is like the rock, but how He is different from the rock. As with every type Jesus is infinitely better than the rock in the wilderness and the water that it provided. As with the manna when the people of Israel drank from the water that flowed from the rock their thirst was satisfied for a time, but with Jesus we have an everflowing source of living water that drinking we will never thirst again, which represents the Holy Spirit that He pours out on us leading to eternal life. We read in

John 7:37–39 ESV

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

And in John 4:13-14

John 4:13–14 ESV

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

So together with the image of the Manna as Jesus, the message is loud and clear. Jesus is the food and drink that leads to eternal life. If you want to be part of His Kingdom and live forever, the only way you can do that is to eat and drink Jesus. Which is of course a metaphor for believing in Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion

Now that we have examined how Jesus is pictured in the manna in the wilderness and the rock that gave the Israelites water, how should this inform us in our walk as disciples of Jesus? How can this help us to better serve Him and make more disciples in His name?

Well first I think the fact that Jesus often uses bread as a metaphor for Himself is tied up in the prayer for “our daily bread.” Bread was the food you ate every day to sustain you. Becoming a disciple of Jesus is not a one and done decision. It’s not punching your ticket to heaven and then waiting around until you die. It’s a daily commitment to take of the living bread and grow in Him. How do we do that? By reading God’s Word that He gave us to lead us and guide us. In the words of Jesus in Matthew 4:4

Matthew 4:4 ESV

But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”

Which together with 2 Timothy 3:16

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

Teaches us that the Scriptures are what should sustain us every day, even more than bread. This is perhaps why God taught us to fast, to learn by occasionally abstaining from food to prioritize God above food.

The other way we daily take in the living bread is through prayer. While the Scriptures are God breathed and essential to our discipleship journey, they are no replacement for a true relationship with Jesus. No relationship is healthy without communication, and our relationship with Jesus is no exception.

Finally the image of Jesus as living bread and living water shows us the need to share Him abundantly with others. If Jesus is the true bread and water that leads to eternal life than if we hoard Him to ourselves we’re leaving the world around us to starve. The Gospel is not a limited resource that we can run out of if we don’t manage it well. If we don’t give it out in abundance than we are guilty of being selfish and living in disobedience to Jesus’ call on our lives to go and make disciples of all nations.